News

Exclusive: Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste and Luana Bajrami have been unveiled as supporting cast members in Rebecca Zlotowski’s murder mystery movie Vie Privée starring Jodie Foster.

The production has also unveiled the plotline for the film which follows renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner, played by previously-announced Foster, who mounts her own private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered.

The supporting cast news and plot reveal comes as filming – running from September 30 to November 22 between Paris and Normandy – enters its third week.

The feature is Zlotowski’s sixth film after 2023 Venice Golden Lion contender Other People’s Children, An Easy Girl, Planetarium, Grand Central and Dear Prudence.

Zlotowski co-wrote the screenplay with Anne Berest, whose credits include Audrey Diwan’s Venice Golden Lion winner Happening and Other People’s Children, as well as long-time collaborator Gaëlle Macé.

The film...

Edward Berger’s harrowing German-language war film “All Quiet on the Western Front” has been named the best film of 2022 by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), which presented its annual Ee British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday evening in London.

The film was a commanding winner at the Baftas, winning seven awards overall, including Best Director for Berger and Best Film Not in the English Language, as well as honors for its adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound and Volker Bertelmann’s score. Martin McDonagh’s black comedy “The Banshees of Inisherin” and Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” each received four.

“All Quiet” was the first film not in English to win at BAFTA since “Roma” in 2019. Before that, no non-English film had won since “Jean de Florette” in 1987. In the early years of the award, films not in English won the top prize fairly regularly,...

Simon Brew Jan 3, 2017

Kevin Costner is planning a new western. In fact, he might just be planning three or four new westerns...

In recent years, Kevin Costner has been ramping his film career back up again, with a mix of projects, the next being the terrific Hidden Figures. Hidden Figures tells the story of the women of Nasa in the 1960s, and in particular their contribution to the space race. Costner takes on a supporting role in that project, which lands in UK cinemas in February.

See related The Losers: revisiting an overlooked comic book movie

Chatting to Variety to promote Hidden Figures, Costner has admitted too that he’s set to return to feature directing, for just the fourth time. Following Dances With Wolves, The Postman and Open Range, Costner admitted that “I have one”, when quizzed about another directorial project.

It’s a new western too. “I’ve been working on it.

Kevin Costner is best utilized as an actor these days, which is why it’s easy to forget that he’s also an Academy Award-winning director. A filmmaker with both Dances with Wolves and The Postman credited to his name, among others, his career behind the camera hasn’t been without high and low points, but he still has a couple of stories that he wants to tell. Notably, a 10 hour Western, which might live to see the light of day in the world of Peak Television, or might live inside the movie theater.

Costner hasn’t kept this project a secret. He’s mentioned it in the past and knows that it’s ambitious and lengthy, especially in a time when Westerns aren’t necessarily profitable. But he hasn’t pushed it aside, nor will he be giving up on it. Promoting his recently released Hidden Figures, the actor...

Ever since Kevin Costner starred in the History Channel's Hatfields & McCoys, he saw a major boost in his career. It's been great to see him in the movies again, but one thing I'd love to see him get back into is directing. The last film he directed was Open Range, and that was 13 years ago. Before that, he directed The Postman and won an Acadamy Award for his directing work on Dances With Wolves in 1991.

It looks like we might actually get to see him direct again as he's been working on an ambitious 10 hour long western! This is a story that could be told over multiple films or a TV series. He told Variety:

"I’ve been working on it. It’s about 10 hours long, how about that? Maybe I’ll make three features out of it. There’s a fourth one, too, so it’s truly a saga.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Amour Fou (Jessica Hausner)

An ecstatically original work of film-history-philosophy with a digital-cinema palette of acutely crafted compositions. Amour Fou seamlessly blends together the paintings of Vermeer, the acting of Bresson, and the psychological undercurrents of a Dostoevsky novel. It is an intensely thrilling and often slyly comic work that manages to combine a passionately dispassionate love story of the highest order with a larger socio-historical examination of a new era of freedom,...

The release of Cinema Paradiso was the point at which foreign-language film developed a new sheen for global audiences – complete with heartwarming stories and a hint of the exotic

• Salvatore Cascio: 'Cinema Paradiso is about the power of dreams'

• Cinema Paradiso: watch the trailer for the 25th anniversary edition

From the start, Cinema Paradiso carries itself like one of the classics its adorable scamp gazes at, open-mouthed, from the projection room. It has an adorable scamp, for starters – and plenty besides: the timeless Sicilian locations, the Felliniesque social carnival, the thunderbolt love affair, humanism lashed about as freely as olive oil. Giuseppe Tornatore's film is a cosy passeggiata down a celluloid Möbius strip looping art into life. When it arrived in the Us in February 1990 – all gilded sequences and grand themes – it seemed like the distillation of the idea of classic foreign cinema.

The two-hour cut – simplifying the characterisation,...

Gérard Depardieu has claimed that the controversy over his departure from France was "a big misunderstanding".

Reports claimed that the 64-year-old French actor left his native country last year over President Francois Hollande's plans to introduce a 75% tax rate on annual income of more than €1 million (£860,000).

However, Depardieu told Figaro magazine that the debacle was "a big misunderstanding".

He said: "I never left! I refuse to be shut in by borders, that's completely different.

"I am a free man. I feel at home everywhere in Europe... I love France as much as ever. It's my country."

The prolific performer, who rose to international prominence in films such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean de Florette and Green Card, sought residency in Belgium and was later confirmed to have received citizenship from Russia.

Depardieu said of France's current Socialist government: "I don't think we can pretend that everything is going well [in France].

"People...

Blue Is the Warmest Color movie: Julie Maroh discusses Abdellatif Kechiche’s failure to acknowledge her (photo: Léa Seydoux in Blue Is the Warmest Color) [See previous post: "Lesbian Sex Scenes 'Turned into Porn' Complains Blue Is the Warmest Color Author."] In the segment below (translated from the French original found here), Julie Maroh describes her less-than-satisfying professional relationship with Abdellatif Kechiche. I’m not a mind reader, but I do believe that her last couple of sentences carry a heavy dose of irony. (See also “Blue is the Warmest Color release date?“) This finale at Cannes is evidently incredible, breathtaking. … Tonight, I discovered that it was the first time in film history that a "comic strip" [graphic novel] inspired a Palme d’Or winner, and this thought leaves me petrified. … I’d like to thank everyone who was astonished, shocked, disgusted that Kechiche didn’t say a thing about me while accepting the Palme d’Or. I have no doubts that he had good reasons for not having done so,...

Tune in alert for self-discovery and surprise revelations abound in May with TV5MONDE USA. Daniel Auteuil, Quelques Jours Avec Lui (2012) May 15, 1:05pm Edt / 10:05am Pdt Two-time César award (Girl on the Bridge, Jean de Florette), Cannes Film Festival (The Eighth Day) and BAFTA Film Award (Jean de Florette) winner Daniel Auteuil is the focal point of this documentary about self-discovery. Over his forty-year career, Daniel Auteuil has played a thousand roles, including the under-gifted Bebel, for Claude Zidi; Scapin, for Jean-Pierre Vincent; and Ugolin, for Claude Berri. At age 63, after recognizing all of his success, the actor admits he wants to talk a little bit about himself after spending his life hiding behind characters.

Cannes 2013 jury Steven Spielberg was named the president of the Cannes Film Festival 2013 jury a few weeks ago. Earlier today, festival organizers announced Spielberg’s fellow jury members. It’s a star-studded international cast: Asian Film Award nominee and Indian Film Academy winner Vidya Balan (The Dirty Picture), Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix winner Naomi Kawase (The Mourning Forest), Academy Award winner and three-time nominee Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge!, The Hours, Rabbit Hole), and BAFTA winner Lynne Ramsay (Swimmer, We Need to Talk About Kevin). Also: Cannes Film Festival and two-time César winner Daniel Auteuil (The Eighth Day, Girl on the Bridge, Jean de Florette), two-time Academy Award winner Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, Life of Pi), Cannes’ 2007 Palme d’Or and 2012 Best Screenplay winner Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days; Beyond the Hills), and two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained). Those listed above will select the winners...

for discussion fun

Tootsie, one of the inarguably great American comedies

"The Tuesday Top Ten will get more article-like soon," he said (again). "It really will." But it was so much fun to discuss the 1930s and the 1970s, which are arguably the two most respected decades (critically speaking) of American cinema. So how about a decade that gets no respect? The 1980s. The '80s are tough for me to feel discerning about because I lived through them and was a) young and b) just falling in love with the movies and c) just falling hard for the movies so how could the cinema possibly have been hitting its nadir? I still have inordinate fondness for movies that might more safely be called guilty pleasures like Yentl, Superman II, Splash, Return of the Jedi, Clue, and about half of the filmography of John Hughes... and so on. I even...

Jaume Balagueró directed [Rec], a highly effective horror film largely confined to a block of gloomy Barcelona flats plagued by carnivorous zombies. His new movie, Sleep Tight, is a psychological thriller set in a slightly superior but shabby art nouveau apartment house, also in Barcelona, which is at the mercy of an embittered concierge, César Marcos (Luis Tosar), a sad psychopath on the brink of middle age. César has it in for the world and especially the tenants he's supposed to be helping, and the picture is a frightening study of unmotivated malevolence. The person who most trusts him is the attractive, cheerful Clara (Marta Etura), and she becomes his principal victim in a campaign even nastier than the one Iago launches against Othello or the one used to destroy the innocent Gérard Depardieu in Jean de Florette. An unrelievedly nightmarish film.

HorrorThrillerPhilip French

guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies.

Odd List Aliya Whiteley Feb 19, 2013

Covering 85 years of cinema, Aliya provides her pick of 25 stylish, must-see French movies...

I’m going to kick this off in best New-Wave style by pointing out that we should be praising each great director’s body of work rather than showcasing favourite movies in a list format; after all, France came up with the concept of the auteur filmmaker, stamping their personality on a film, using the camera to portray their version of the world.

Yeah, well, personality is everything. So here’s a highly personal choice, arranged in chronological order, of 25 of the most individualistic French films. They may be long or short, old or new, but they all have one thing in common – they’ve got directorial style. And by that I don’t mean their shoes match their handbags.

The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928)

There are no stirring battle scenes,...

American-based actress explains why she followed her heart and returned to Britain for a new BBC2 drama

Jacqueline Bisset, who has worked with some of the greatest directors on both sides of the Atlantic over five decades, is returning to Britain to star in a major television drama series by the acclaimed writer-director Stephen Poliakoff.

Dancing on the Edge, to be screened on BBC2 from next month, is set in the early 1930s and follows a group of black jazz musicians who entertain London's upper-class society, encountering racism, class prejudice and nationalism.

Bisset, 68, who was once described by Newsweek as "the most beautiful actress of all time", said the series tells a story that has contemporary parallels, and explained that she had wanted to make more British drama and increase her range of roles.

In an interview with the Observer, the bilingual star of British and French descent said she...

By turns, he scandalises and enthrals. Now, the country's most famous actor is leaving home, angry at the imposition of a new 'supertax'. As he seems all set to settle in Belgium, is this really adieu from Gégé?

From which ever angle you view him – literally, metaphorically, physically – Gérard Depardieu is a colossus of Gallic life.

The term most frequently used to describe the bon vivant but volatile embodiment of French popular cinema is "une force de nature".

Even as the off-screen – often drink-fuelled — excesses of Gégé, as he is fondly known, became ever more outrageous, his legion of French fans would shrug and say it was simply Depardieu being Gérard. As he stuck a chubby finger up to convention they laughed. The more undignified the performance (falling off his scooter while drunk, peeing in the aisle of an aircraft) they still laughed: this was Gérard, no mere mortal but a national institution.

Jean de Florette star held for questioning after falling from his scooter and injuring his elbow

The French actor Gérard Depardieu was detained for driving his scooter while drunk after he had a minor accident in Paris, prosecutors said.

The 63-year-old star of films such as Jean de Florette and Green Card was held for questioning after he fell from his scooter mid-afternoon, slightly injuring his elbow.

No-one else was hurt in the accident.

One of France's best-known actors for roles in more than 100 films, Depardieu has recently grabbed headlines for the wrong reasons.

The incident came just months after a car driver filed a legal complaint for assault and battery against Depardieu in August following an altercation in Paris.

Last year, Depardieu outraged fellow passengers by urinating in the aisle of an Air France flight as it prepared to take off, forcing the plane to turn back to its parking spot.

To celebrate the Blu-Ray and DVD release of Claude Sautet’s César et Rosalie, on November 5th we have three blu-ray copes to give away.

César et Rosalie is an enchanting French romance starring Yves Montand (Jean De Florette) and Romy Schneider (What’s New Pussycat? Sissi), directed by Claude Sautet (Un Coeur en Hiver, Les Chose de la Vie).

Rosalie is a beautiful vivacious young woman involved with a charming, successful businessman called César. He is crazy about her and his exuberant vitality satisfies Rosalie’s terrific lust for life. One day out of the blue Rosalie’s old flame David appears, desperate to win back her affections. César’s intense jealousy shocks Roaslie and she ends up running into the arms of David and the pair are separated. Rosalie however begins to doubt that she’s made the right choice, until fate ends up deciding for her.

To...

Review by Barbara Snitzer

Barbara Snitzer writes about French cinema at her movie blog Le Movie Snob

An open letter to M Daniel Auteuil:

D’abord, merci M Auteuil for letting me vicariously spend some of my remaining summer moments in my beloved Provence, especially the most beautiful village I have visited there, Salon-de-Provence. It is my sincere hope your directing début will attract more visitors than those who know it as Nostradamus’ birthplace. (Of course, not too many, especially the English.)

I congratulate you on the favorable reviews you are receiving, and it is with great regret that I cannot join the enthusiastic bandwagon. I do not agree with some criticisms I’ve heard from France that you are not a competent director; au contraire. Choosing a work from the .uvre of Marcel Pagnol whose works are set in the region of your childhood and brought you international acclaim are wise choices,...

French film star Daniel Auteuil came to international prominence a quarter-century ago when he played the dim-witted nephew of evil land baron Yves Montand in "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring," two films based on epic novels by Marcel Pagnol. For his directorial debut, Auteuil returns to the well, as it were, with another Pagnol adaptation, "The Well Digger's Daughter." American audiences who like their French period pieces extra-French — complete with sun-dappled fields, tree-lined avenues, full-lipped young girls in sundresses and dashing young men in uniform flying World War...

There's a thesis to be written about water in the cinema. Key texts would include Bad Day at Black Rock, Once Upon a Time in the West, Jean de Florette/ Manon des sources, and Chinatown. To these can be added Even the Rain and The Source, European-financed movies about impoverished citizens in respectively Bolivia and north Africa battling with the authorities over the provision of water to their communities. The better of the two is the gripping Even the Rain, scripted by Ken Loach's regular screenwriter Paul Laverty and directed by the Spanish actress Icíar Bollaín, author of a book about working with Loach. Intertwined are a real-life story of a battle to prevent the privatisation of water in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba in 2000 and the fictional production in the neighbourhood of a feature film about Christopher Columbus and his legacy. The makers of the movie-within-the-movie are themselves...

Where did producer Thomas Langmann, an Oscar winner for "The Artist," come from? And what is it about the French that they love to embrace risk? Langmann sold his home and borrowed money from relatives to get "The Artist" rolling. Then he met Harvey Weinstein and the rest is cinema history. Langmann’s father was Claude Berri, whom I met on the beaches of St. Tropez in the early 1970s. Berri was an actor and producer of some of France’s finest films such as "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Springs." Each summer my...

In case you missed it: Here's the acceptance speeches at the 84th Academy Awards, published below in their entirety (as transcribed by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences). Thomas Langmann and Michel Hazanvicius ("The Artist"), Best Motion Picture Thomas Langmann: I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. To you members of the Academy, to you Harvey, not only because we received tonight the award that any filmmaker would ever dream to receive, but because you’re offering me tonight the opportunity to pay tribute to a member of this Academy that I miss so much, the Oscar winner Claude Berri. And he directed movies like “The Two of Us,” “Jean de Florette” and produced and worked with directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Milos Forman, Pedro Almodovar, Roman Polanski. And I always thought and remember, will I ever one day be able to work with such director?...

Another day, another awards ceremony. Who can keep up?!?

Last night The Producers Guild of America gave their big prize, a transparent glassy gargantuan paperweight, to the man who helped The Artist come into being, Thomas Langmann. One thing that's not being much noted -- since behind the screen forces rarely get attention -- is that Langmann was once a regular presence in front of the camera in France and he's actually the son of director Claude Berri (of Jean de Florette/Manon of the Springs fame!). Of course right at the moment he's best known Stateside as 'that guy who was trying to tell his heartfelt story at the Golden Globes while Uggie was doing his tricks' and distracting the television cameras... as discussed on the most recent podcast. Another actor turned producer, Michael Rapaport was also honored (along with his co-producers) for the documentary Beats, Rhymes and Life.

French filmmaker Thomas Langmann paid homage to his late father Claude Berri at the Golden Globes in Los Angeles on Sunday night, revealing the great director was too poor to attend the Oscars to accept his 1966 prize.

Berri, who made classic movies like Jean De Florette and Tess - for which he received an Academy Awards nomination, had to miss out on his moment of Hollywood glory when his film Le Poulet was named the Best Short Film over four decades ago, but his son honoured him while accepting the Globes Best Film prize for The Artist.

The producer said, "In 1965, a young French man directed and wrote and produced a short film and then prayed for a miracle to come and it came... (but) in those days he didn't have enough money to come to Hollywood, to pay the flight ticket, and receive this Oscar.

"This man was my father, named Claude Berri, so it is now almost three years (since) he passed away and it is such an honour... to receive this."...

By Roger Friedman

HollywoodNews.com: Brad Pitt was hilarious and touching last night accepting his Best Actor award from the New York Film Critics Circle. Joining other honorees Meryl Streep, Albert Brooks, Jessica Chastain and the folks from “The Artist,” Pitt was a little nervous and actually spoke softly from the podium at restaurant. Angelina Jolie was with him, looking more gorgeous than ever, accepting kudos for her underrated film “In the Land of Blood and Honey.” Viola Davis, herself a nominee for “The Help” from many different groups, presented Best Actress to Streep. Davis joked: “I popped a lot of Stress Tabs when we made ‘Doubt’.” Streep was philosophical, having won the same award two years ago: “We do this for love, and for as long as we can.”

Surprise presenters were Robert DeNiro –who had trouble with “Artist” director Michel Hazanavicius‘s name–and Francis Ford Coppola, who...

Another Earth (12A)

(Mike Cahill, 2011, Us) Brit Marling, William Mapother, Matthew-Lee Erlbach. 92 mins

It's been quite a year for cosmic arthouse, and like The Tree Of Life and Melancholia, this low-key indie contrasts inner and outer space to stirring effect. Unlike a Kubrick-style space odyssey, it's very much down to earth – Earth One, that is. "Earth Two", a duplicate of our own, is more like a giant metaphor in the sky. Its discovery tragically fuses the lives of two people, and could yet resolve it, which makes for a tender character drama with a shot of sci-fi ingenuity.

Puss In Boots (U)

(Chris Miller, 2011, Us) Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis. 90 mins

Between the Shrek brand recognition, the bright 3D, the broad-spectrum comedy and the prospect of cute cats dancing, it's hard to imagine a more mercilessly commercial proposition than this animated spin-off. It's a predictably polished affair, with Banderas's...

French actor Daniel Auteuil makes a solid directorial debut with this story adapted from a Pagnol novel – though it's perhaps on the old-fashioned side

Daniel Auteuil stars and makes a very competent directing debut with this handsome, old-fashioned film, adapted from the novel by Marcel Pagnol. It's a bucolic tale, set around the second world war, which must surely remind his fans of the movies that made his name in the UK: the 1986 dramas Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources. Auteuil plays Pascal, a digger and cleaner of wells: he is a greying widower and the father of a number of daughters. The most beautiful of these is the 18-year-old Patricia (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) who is being courted by Pascal's heartbreakingly humble, middle-aged mate Félipe (Kad Merad). But she, like Hardy's Tess, is to be romanced and ruined by a handsome, unreliable young man from wealthier stock. This is Jacques (Nicolas Duvauchelle), whose parents,...

Errol Morris, London

The esteem in which this documentarian is held can be judged by the people interviewing him on stage: BBC Storyville producer Nick Fraser, Adam Curtis, Franny Armstrong and the Guardian's Xan Brooks. Each Q&A is preceded by a screening of Morris's latest, Tabloid, which marks a return to his eccentric terrain after recent films on Abu Ghraib (Standard Operating Procedure) and the Vietnam war (The Fog Of War). Tabloid revisits the very British scandal of Joyce McKinney, a Wyoming beauty queen who allegedly kidnapped and sexually enslaved her beau – or did she rescue him from the Mormons? Morris gives us the story from all sides.

Brixton Ritzy, SW2, Sat; Bafta, W1, Sun; Gate Notting Hill, W11; Screen On The Green, N1, Tue

French Film Festival, On tour

There's a tinge of nostalgia to the festival's big draws this year. Special guest Daniel Auteuil harks back to...

Paris (Reuters) - French actor Gerard Depardieu was humiliated and apologized to fellow passengers when prostate problems forced him to urinate in front of them during takeoff on an Air France flight this week, a friend said.

Fellow actor Edouard Baer, who was traveling with the 62-year-old film star on the flight to Dublin to film the latest "Asterix and Obelix" movie, said Depardieu had tried to urinate in a water bottle when denied access to the toilet by a hostess.

"It's just that the bottle was too small. It's true that it overflowed," Baer told Europe 1 radio. "He was embarrassed. He wanted to clean it up...It was very humiliating and awkward for him. He obviously made a big scene (saying) 'I pissed on myself'."

The incident came to light on Wednesday when a passenger on the flight from Paris to Dublin told French radio that Depardieu, star of...

Fellow passenger tells French radio that actor delayed plane's takeoff from Paris on Tuesday evening

An airline passenger has claimed her Paris-Dublin flight was delayed for nearly two hours after Gérard Depardieu urinated on the plane before takeoff.

France's Europe-1 radio aired an interview with the passenger, identified only by her first name Daniele, in which she said that Depardieu appeared inebriated and announced: "I need to piss, I need to piss." She said when the cabin crew told him to remain seated during takeoff, "he stood up and did it on the ground".

Karen Gillo, a spokeswoman for City Jet, the Dublin-based airline that operated the Tuesday evening flight, confirmed that such an incident had taken place. But she said on Wednesday that privacy issues prevented her from naming the passenger, who was escorted off the plane along with his two travelling companions and their luggage.

Calls for comment...

Paris (Reuters) - French actor Gerard Depardieu outraged fellow passengers by urinating in the aisle of an Air France flight as it prepared to take off on Tuesday, forcing the plane to turn back to its parking spot.

A passenger on the flight said Depardieu, 62, the star of movies such as "Jean de Florette" and "Green Card," appeared to be drunk and insisted he be allowed to use the bathroom during takeoff, when passengers must remain seated.

When he was asked by a hostess to return to his seat, Depardieu urinated in the aisle, the passenger told French radio station Europe 1 on Wednesday.

"You could see that he had been drinking, but there were no comments. The hostess was shocked but there was no argument, nothing," said the passenger.

"I was outraged. When you are an actor, you are not like other people, you do not have to abide by the rules.

There may be no excuse for appearing in Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties or Braddock: Missing in Action III, but is this right?

She may have earned a Golden Globe nomination for her TV work last year – and he may have invented a special pair of jeans for kicking people with – but history is already starting to turn against Jennifer Love Hewitt and Chuck Norris. According to Slate's comprehensive new study of Rottentomatoes aggregates, they are rated the worst actress and actor to have worked since 1985.

On the surface, it doesn't look like there's much to disagree with. Jennifer Love Hewitt, for example, has never starred in a film that has received a Rottentomatoes score of over 60%. Instead she's been content to ping backwards and forwards in pieces of dreck as diverse as Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties.

French star expresses incredulity that Binoche, an actor with more than 50 films behind her, has achieved such acclaim

To most people, she is one of the foremost French actors of her generation: a popular and versatile performer with almost 50 films in her repertoire and an array of international awards on her mantelpiece.

But Gerard Depardieu is not most people. To him, quite simply, Juliette Binoche is "nothing".

In a no-holds-barred interview proving once again the rambunctious star's lack of social graces, Depardieu expressed incredulity that Binoche had met with such acclaim.

He asked: "Please can you explain to me what the secret of this actress is meant to be?

"I would really like to know why she has been so esteemed for so many years. She has nothing. Absolutely nothing!"

Binoche, who won the award for best actress at this year's Cannes film festival for her role in Abbas Kiarostami...

Dennis Hopper: Sunday Brunch With The last Rebel, Bristol

It would take a month of Sundays to do justice to Hopper's long and varied career, but this quartet is at least playing at a time of day the late American great might appreciate. Eat off that hangover with a "South West Full English" and watch four of Hopper's key films, even if his chemically enhanced performances might cause hangovers rather than cure them. In fact, this could well be part of a government safety campaign on the effects of different narcotics: Easy Rider (marijuana), Apocalypse Now (cocaine), Blue Velvet (solvent abuse) and The American Friend (Mogadon) – a tribute to Hopper's "range", then.

Sun to 25 Jul, Watershed, visit watershed.co.uk

Tibet Film Festival, London & touring

It's not easy to "celebrate" Tibetan culture wholeheartedly when we might just as easily mourn its systematic destruction, but this festival tells us it's all right to do both.

We ask our film critics and former winners for their view of the nominees for next weekend's ceremony, and Jason Solomons reflects on Bafta history and the future of the awards

Long gone are the days when the Bafta ceremony was as vital as a Rotarian dinner, when the same few British redoubtables – Attenborough, Mills, Bogarde, Forsyth (Bill and Bruce) – clapped each other on the back with a "Well done, old chap", mainly for still squeezing into their black tie.

The Baftas used to take place in April or early May, way after the Oscars. Splitting the film and television awards in 1998 provided an instant injection of glamour, and in 2002 the film Baftas were moved to February, cannily placing them as the last staging post en route to Oscar glory for many American films. I remember the red carpet foaming up in the rain and ruining Julia Roberts's shoes,...

Oscar-winning French director Claude Berri has died from a stroke at the age of 74.

The filmmaker, actor, screenwriter and producer was admitted to a Paris hospital on Saturday night with a "very serious neurological condition" after suffering from a blood clot on the brain.

He spent the remainder of the weekend under observation in the intensive care unit, but was pronounced dead on Monday, his agent has confirmed.

A statement released by his publicist simply reads, "Claude Berri died this morning at La Salpétrière Hospital in Paris of a stroke."

Born in Paris in 1934, Berri started his career as an actor, starring in movies by Claude Chabrol, before moving behind the camera.

He was best known for his producing role on Roman Polanski's award-winning 1979 film Tess, and picked up an Academy Award for his short film Le Poulet in 1966.

Berri was also noted for his work on 1986 movie Jean de Florette, 1990's Uranus, and Germinal - the most expensive French feature film ever made at the time of its release in 1993.

The Pope has convinced Gerard Depardieu to take up the role of St. Augustine of Hippo in an attempt to spread the word of Christianity. The Frenchman, who was in Rome to promote his latest film Asterix And Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, was confronted by the head of the Catholic church over his resemblance to the fourth century author of The Confessions. He, like the Green Card and Jean De Florette star, was a "wild child" before rediscovering Christianity later in life. The 53-year-old says, "As soon as I entered the room the Holy Father said 'But that's St Augustine'." Depardieu's intention is now to conduct a reading of The Confessions in public, at Thagaste, which is the birthplace of the saint in present day Algeria.