News

The most anticipated night in Hollywood has finally arrived. Tonight, the biggest names in film gathered for the 97th Academy Awards, officially closing out the 2025 awards season.

Top-rated films Emilia Pérez, Wicked, The Brutalist, Anora, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, and The Substance will compete for Best Picture, while A-listers like Demi Moore, Adrian Brody, Cynthia Erivo, Timothée Chalamet, and more will also seek to earn recognition for their work.

Conan O’Brien will host the show, marking his first time helming the Oscars,...

Fumi Kitahara, a widely respected animation publicist who helped steer award-winning campaigns for studios including DreamWorks, Aardman, Laika, Netflix, and Disney, passed away on Monday due to complications from a rare form of blood cancer, her family announced. She was 56.

“Dear Friends of Fumi,” the family wrote. “We’re devastated to share that our dear Fumi passed away this afternoon, February 24, after her long struggle with a rare blood cancer. She was surrounded by the love of her family and close friends.”

Signed “Simon, Max & the Kitahara Family,” the joint statement continued, “We know many of you will be as heartbroken as we are in saying goodbye to her unforgettable personality, her infectious smile, and her warm and loving heart. This is an unimaginable loss for us, our family, and the animation community. Thank you for the love, support, and friendship you have shown her over the years. She meant the world to so many.

Fumi Kitahara, the animation publicist who guided award-winning campaigns for DreamWorks, Aardman, Laika, Netflix, Disney and independent studios during her distinguished 30-plus years in the industry, has died. She was 56.

Kitahara died Monday in Los Angeles of complications related to her long battle with a rare blood cancer, a spokesperson for Walt Disney Animation announced.

Among the many acclaimed animated features she helped to publicize are the first three Shrek films, Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, How to Train Your Dragon, Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings, Over the Moon and The Sea Beast.

She also oversaw the awards campaigns for numerous Oscar-winning shorts, including such recent titles as The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse and War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko.

Born on March 2, 1968, Kitahara graduated from California State University Northridge with a degree in business marketing.

Fumi Kitahara, a respected publicity executive who guided award-winning campaigns for studios including DreamWorks, Aardman, Laika, Netflix and Disney, died Monday of complications related to a rare blood cancer. She was 56.

Among the features Kitahara helped publicize are the first three “Shrek” films, “Chicken Run,” “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” “How to Train Your Dragon,” “Coraline,” “Kubo and the Two Strings,” “Over the Moon” and “The Sea Beast.”

She oversaw awards campaigns for Oscar-winning shorts such as “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse,” and “War is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko.”

Kitahara graduated from Cal State Northridge and started her career in 1992 at Walt Disney Studios in the office of Howard Green, working with him on features including “The Lion King,” “Pocahontas,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Toy Story,” and “Frank and Ollie,” in addition to a variety of live-action titles.

Rank Film (origin)DistributorFeb 21-23 gross Total Week 1 Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy (UK-Fr-us) Universal £6.9m £27.3m 2 2 Captain America: Brave New World (US) Disney £2.9m £13.2m 2 3 Dog Man (US) Universal £2m £11m 3 4 The Monkey (US) Black Bear £1m £1.1m 1 5 Mufasa: The Lion King (US) Disney £585,083 £32.3m 10

Gbp to Usd conversion rate: 1.26

Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy has topped £27m after just two weekends at the UK-Ireland box office; as Black Bear’s The Monkey climbed into the top five on its first outing.

Universal’s Mad About The Boy added £6.9m on its second session – a relatively slim...

It’s not always the case that winning top entertainment awards makes a film a great watch. Some can be tough to get through but they are still very deserving of the accolade. But two top awards for a movie available on Netflix is a huge signal to make sure you see it if you haven't already.

If you haven’t yet seen the latest Wallace and Gromit animation Vengeance Most Fowl, what have you been doing? Where have you been? It’s a comedy classic and deserves your attention.

If you weren't sure, then the Aardman animation was given two big thumbs up as recommendations on Sunday night. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, more usually known as BAFTA celebrated the film with a couple of awards. It was awarded a BAFTA each for Best Animated Film and Children's Family Film.

Wallace and Gromit are deserving BAFTA...

Ralph Fiennes stars as Cardinal Lawrence in director Edward Berger’s ‘Conclave’ (Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features. © 2024)

Conclave and The Brutalist tied with four wins at the 2025 Ee BAFTA Film Awards, announced on January 16th during a ceremony hosted by David Tennant. Anora, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Perez, A Real Pain, Wicked, and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul each picked up two awards, and David Jonsson (Alien: Romulus) was the recipient of this year’s Ee Rising Star Award.

Adrien Brody, Mikey Madison, Zoe Saldaña, and Kieran Culkin took home their first BAFTA Film Awards wins. Warwick Davis was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship in recognition of “his work as an actor and for using his platform to challenge societal prejudice and champion self-empowerment, advocating that people with dwarfism can and do lead full and meaningful lives.”

BAFTA Awards 2025 Nominees and Winners

Best Film

Anora

The Brutalist

A Complete...

BAFTA/Marc Hoberman

The 2025 Ee BAFTA Film Awards were hosted on Sunday by David Tennant at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Conclave won four BAFTAs, including Best Film, Film Editing, Adapted Screenplay and Outstanding British Film. This is Edward Berger’s second time winning the Best Film award, with his first being 2023’s All Quiet On The Western Front.

The Brutalist also won four awards, including Best Director for Brady Corbet, Leading Actor for Adrien Brody, Cinematography and Music Score, while Mikey Madison won Leading Actress for Anora. The film also took the BAFTA for Casting.

Emilia Perez was awarded with two BAFTAs – Supporting Actress Zoe Saldaña and Film Not in the English Language.

The delightful Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl won two BAFTAs for Best Animated Feature and Children’s & Family Film. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story was awarded Best Documentary.

David Jonsson (Andy in Alien Romulus...

The final round of Oscar voting has commenced, and in the running for Best Animated Feature is Aardman with their second Wallace and Gromit feature, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. This comes 19 years after Nick Park and Steve Boxput bowties on their statuettes on stage after winning for the inventor-dog duo's first feature adventure, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. It's been 20 years since Wallace got the Hammer horror treatment and turned into a very large were-rabbit who torments their small, sleepy Northern English town by eating all their vegetables. In the time since, we've only seen one short from the Wallace and Gromit franchise, but it was worth the wait. Vengeance Most Fowl, despite needing to cast Ben Whitehead as Wallacedue to the death of the great Peter Sallis, proves this beloved animated world hasn't lost any of its spark.

Wallace and Gromit’s latest adventure, the delightfully whimsical “Vengeance Most Fowl,” celebrates the joys of doing things the old-fashioned way in a world increasingly focused on automation.

The film personifies the push and pull between the old-fashioned and new-fangled through a new character for the beloved franchise: Norbot. Invented by Wallace to help his canine best friend in the garden, the nifty, odd-jobbing robot gnome immediately grates on Gromit’s last nerve. While Wallace has good intentions, he’s lost touch with some of life’s simple pleasures (like giving Gromit a pat on the head).

With hot-button topics like the rise of AI on the minds of everyone in Hollywood, this concept may seem like a no-brainer — but the idea has actually been percolating for over 20 years with the Aardman Animations team. After all, who can attest to the power of taking it slow more than a crew of stop-motion animators?...

In a category that is often filled with animated films geared toward children and families, “Memoir of a Snail” and its themes of depression and conversion therapy immediately stand out in this year’s Best Animated Feature category. But this isn’t the first time that director Adam Elliot has found himself at the Academy Awards, with his short “Harvie Krumpet” winning 21 years ago.

Elliot notes how the success of “Harvie Krumpet” helped get “Mary & Max” off the ground, which released to critical acclaim after its 2009 Sundance premiere. On the campaign trail for “Memoir of a Snail,” Elliot finds himself back in the artistic hub of Los Angeles after 15 years, meeting agents and representatives from major studios like Netflix and Sony. “They’re all very lovely and nice but they all want me to direct one of their films,” he explains. “So far, it’s always been something for...

Feathers McGraw is, arguably, one of the most iconic screen villains of all time – and without speaking a single word.

The character, a penguin disguising himself as a rooster, fist appeared in Nick Park’s Oscar-winning animated short “The Wrong Trousers” for Aardman Animations. He was a diamond thief who had infiltrated the quiet home of Wallace (Peter Sallis) and his dog Gromit. There were shades of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lodger” and the entire short ended in one of the most breathlessly realized chase sequences ever.

And now, McGraw is back as the antagonist in Netflix’s Oscar-nominated feature “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” directed by Park and Merlin Crossingham. This time, McGraw is out for revenge — he schemes inside his prison cell at the local zoo and hacks a robotic garden gnome that Wallace has created. As far as characters making their splashy comeback, it doesn’t get much better than this.

“When you make stop-motion, you can’t go back.”

In a film industry increasingly fixated on the bigger, better and bolder — from CGI to motion capture or greenscreen technology — nothing gets Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham more excited than traditional stop-motion animation.

“There’s an element of human touch,” Crossingham tells The Hollywood Reporter off the back of Aardman Animations’ seventh Oscar nomination for the most recent installment, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, of their beloved franchise. “From the time the animator starts the scene until they get to the end, that’s it. It’s a one-hit process, which is very, very pressurizing to get right the first time.” He continues, “I think there’s something in that which makes it quite alive. Because no matter how much preparation you do, even with your best animators, you never quite know what you’re going to get.”

Fortunately for the duo,...

In January 2025, Aardman Animations' latest critically acclaimed film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, premiered in the United States on Netflix. Aardman Animations Limited is a British animation studio founded in 1972 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. The studio, which is known for its stop-motion animation, first gained prominence for its Morph series of short films and for working on Peter Gabriel's landmark "Sledgehammer" music video. In addition to Morph, Aardman Animations created the Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, and Shaun the Sheep franchises.

Between the late 1980s and mid-1990s, Aardman Animations emerged as one of the world's most respected animation studios thanks to their award-winning short films. In five years, Aardman Animations won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film three times for Creature Comforts, Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, and Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave. At the start of the new millennium, Aardman Animations began making feature-length films.

A new year means a batch of new movies on your favorite streaming service, and this month brings a mountain of new releases and originals in addition to terrific library additions. Below we’ve put together a curated list of some of the best new movies streaming on Netflix, Prime Video, Max, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock and beyond this month, from streaming debuts of some of 2024’s best films to starry rom-coms to a good old fashioned Western.

Check out our list of the best new movies streaming in January below.

“Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever” Netflix

Netflix – Jan. 1

The latest must-see Netflix documentary centers around Bryan Johnson, a tech millionaire who is on an eternal quest to turn back the clock. Chris Smith, the filmmaker behind “Wham” and an executive producer of “Tiger King,” directs the new film, which Netflix says, “dives deep into his psyche,...

Ralph Fiennes stars as Cardinal Lawrence in director Edward Berger’s ‘Conclave’ (Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features. © 2024)

Conclave emerged the favorite among the 2025 Ee BAFTA Film Awards voters, scoring 12 nominations including Best Film, Director, Leading Actor, and Supporting Actress. Emilia Pérez was close behind with 11 nominations, followed by The Brutalist with nine and Anora, Dune: Part Two, and Wicked with seven.

Overall, 42 films earned BAFTA Film Awards nominations, and 14 of the 24 performance nominees are BAFTA Awards first-timers.

Winners will be announced on February 16th.

“From a total of 235 films entered, we are delighted to announce 42 extraordinary and creatively ambitious films that have been nominated. The skills on display from creative and technical practitioners across the board are phenomenal. I look forward to celebrating the many talented people in front of and behind the camera at the Ee BAFTA Film Awards 2025 ceremony on 16 February,” stated Sara Putt, Chair of BAFTA.

BAFTA...

The nominees for the 78th British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) are here, setting up even more showdowns in the 2025 awards season.

Check out this year’s nominees for the 2025 Baftas below:

Best Film:

Anora

The Brutalist

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Emilia Pérez

Outstanding British Film:

Bird

Blitz

Conclave

Gladiator II

Hard Truths

Kneecap

Lee

Love Lies Bleeding

The Outrun

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Best Director:

Anora Sean Baker

The Brutalist Brady Corbet

Conclave Edward Berger

Dune: Part Two Denis Villeneuve

Emilia Pérez Jacques Audiard

The Substance Coralie Fargeat

Best Actress in a Leading Role:

Cynthia Erivo Wicked

Karla Sofia Gascon Emilia Pérez

Marianne Jean-Baptiste Hard Truths

Mikey Madison Anora

Demi Moore The Substance

Saoirse Ronan The Outrun

Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Adrien Brody The Brutalist

Timothée Chalamet A Complete Unknown

Colman Domingo Sing Sing

Ralph Fiennes Conclave

Hugh Grant Heretic

Sebastian Stan The Apprentice...

On Wednesday, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced its 78th annual BAFTA Awards nominees, with expected contenders Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, and Emilia Pérez nominated for Best Film.

Conclave led all films with 12 nominations, including bids for Best Film, Best British Film, Best Director for Edward Berger, Best Adapted Screenplay for Peter Straughan, Best Actor for Ralph Fiennes, and Best Supporting Actress for Isabella Rossellini. It’s the second time BAFTA voters have widely embraced a Berger feature in three years after giving All Quiet on the Western Front 14 nominations in 2023.

In second, just behind the nominations leader, was Emilia Pérez. Netflix’s top contender landed 11 BAFTA Award nominations, including Best Film, Best Film Not in English Language, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Jacques Audiard, Best Actress for Karla Sofia Gascón, and Best Supporting Actress for Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña.

Other...

Ah, awards season, when cinema stans obsessively track the goings-on at all the film fétes in America and that one in England. While not necessarily as big of an indicator for the Academy Awards race as U.S. shows like the Golden Globes, Oscars prognosticators will factor what goes on...

Out of respect for those affected by the L.A. wildfires, the American Cinema Editors have announced that the 2025 Ace Eddie Awards has been postponed. A new date for the 75th annual ceremony will be announced soon.

The reimagined gala, which will still honor Wicked director Jon M. Chu with the Ace Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award, will “pivot from a black-tie, red carpet event to a ‘Come as You Are’ community-building fundraiser,” the organization announced. In addition, a portion of the ticket sales will be donated to Southern California fire relief. The guild’s private cocktail party celebrating the Ace Eddie Awards nominees is also being moved to a new date. See more event changes in the wake of the wildfires.

The guild’s official statement is: “Due to the ongoing concerns for safety within our L.A. communities, we have made arrangements with UCLA and Royce Hall...

Toy Story changed it all in the animation game. As the first entirely computer-generated feature, it meant that studios were going to have to up their game. Take a look at the highest-grossing animated films ever and the top 50 maybe has three, all of them from the Disney Renaissance. So it’s an understatement to say that Toy Story (and Pixar) is the chief reason. But if you thought traditional animation was threatened, what about stop-motion? Nick Park – creator of the Wallace & Gromit series – remembers that it put him and his studio on high alert.

Nick Park – a key player at Aardman Animations – recalled that Pixar’s rise in the animation world was a moment of reckoning for both himself and the artform in which he cultivated. As he told Inverse, “Back when Toy Story first came out in the ’90s, a studio like us, we’re thinking, ‘Oh, boy,...

Aardman Animation is one of the few animation studios, alongside Pixar and Studio Ghibli, that boasts such a consistent level of quality that it has inspired an active fanbase. Although the labor-intensive process of claymation that Aardman utilizes has resulted in a far shorter filmography when compared to its rivals, each film that the studio has released has a signature hand-crafted charm, novel sense of humor, and willfully irreverent style. It’s somewhat surprising to consider that “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” is only the tenth cinematic film in the studio’s filmography, as Aardman’s influence has been rather oversized. Thankfully, the latest adventure featuring the kindly inventor, Wallace, and his loyal beagle, Gromit, encapsulates everything that Aardman has done best.

Although Aardman has yet to suffer a steep decline in acclaim like the creative rut that Dreamworks or Illumination has suffered, it is evident that the studio...

Four-time Academy Award-winning animator and filmmaker Nick Park changed the stop-motion medium forever when he first introduced the dynamic duo Wallace & Gromit in 1989 in his short A Grand Day Out. Since then, Park has continued his collaboration with Aardman Animation as a writer, animator, director and producer on animated classics like Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Over the last handful of years, Park has been busy at work with co-director and animator Merlin Crossingham on the first Wallace & Gromit feature since A Matter of Loaf and Death (2008), and it's no surprise Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is already in talks for an Oscar nomination.

We all love it when a classic screen villain makes an unexpected return. That certainly drives “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl,” the first Wallace & Gromit feature since 2005’s Oscar-winning “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit” and the first film to feature the beloved characters since 2008’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death”. The villain? Feathers McGraw, the larcenous penguin (disguised as a rooster thanks to a red rubber glove) from 1993’s “The Wrong Trousers,” which, yes, won the Oscar for animated short.

This time around, Feathers frames cuddly inventor Wallace (voiced by Ben Whitehead) and his beloved pooch Gromit for a series of crimes by hacking into the “smart gnome” Wallace has invented, named Norbot.

Director Nick Park said that the central idea for the new film had been hanging around since “Curse of the Were-Rabbit:” “What if Wallace invented a robot gnome to help Gromit in the garden?” The idea,...

Of all the films vying for honors in this year’s awards season, only one heralds the return of not just one of cinema’s most iconic duos, but one of its most dastardly villains.

“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” — longlisted in BAFTA categories for outstanding British film, children’s and family film and animated film, and expected to be in the mix for the animated feature Oscar — marks the first film starring Aardman’s stop-motion animation heroes since 2008’s Oscar-nominated short “A Matter of Loaf and Death” (and the first feature since 2005’s Oscar-winning “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”).

While any new project starring Nick Park’s beloved inventor and his pet dog is cause for celebration, “Vengeance Most Fowl” also brings back Feathers McGraw, the would-be diamond thief and master of disguise penguin last seen being locked up at the end of 2003’s Oscar-winning classic “The Wrong...

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts fueling awards season’s most talked-about movies continues with Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Netflix’s stop-motion animated feature that returns Aardman Animations’ iconic duo to the big screen after a 20-year hiatus.

The latest screenplay was written by Nick Park and Mark Burton, based on a story by and directed by Park and Merlin Crossingham. The film world premiered in the fall at AFI Fest, aired on the BBC on Christmas Day and debuted on Netflix on January 3.

It followed the 2005 success of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, which grossed $192 million at the global box office.

In Vengeance Most Fowl, Wallace creates a new “smart” gnome, named Norbit, which becomes a local sensation. News reports of this innovation draw the attention of the previously imprisoned foe Feathers McGraw. The cunning Feathers hacks Wallace’s files and reprograms the gnome from prison,...

Almost two decades after their last hit feature film, the beloved claymation icons returned in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Created for Aardman Animations by Nick Park back in 1989, the Wallace & Gromit franchise concerns a bumbling inventor named Wallace and his silent beagle companion Gromit, who typically cause chaos with their unusual inventions. After three popular short films throughout the late '80s and 1990s, the claymation duo jumped to the big screen and found an even bigger international audience with 2005's Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Wallace and Gromit's first jump to the big screen was a smashing success, and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is generally recognized as one of the best stop-motion movies of all time. However, the titular duo behind the classic shorts and feature films have been largely absent, and barring a new short in 2008, haven't been seen on the big...

In an age where CGI animation reigns supreme, traditional 2D animation is all but dead in movie theaters, and we’re regularly subjected to photorealistic monstrosities from mega-corporations like Disney, a new film from Aardman Animations feels like an oasis in a desert. While they’ve of course dabbled with some CGI films, the Bristol-based studio has otherwise stayed committed to a style of filmmaking that feels handmade: quite literally. On the models of the Plasticine-based characters that populate an Aardman film, you can sometimes spot the fingerprints of the directors who painstakingly move them around to create the thrilling action and laugh-out loud comedy. With cinema increasingly becoming in danger of going AI-generated, it’s comforting to see a movie that’s so unambiguously made by humans.

Although they made their feature film debut in 2000 with the beloved “Chicken Run,” Aardman Animations goes all the way back to 1972, when...

It’s been 20 years since Britain’s iconic animated duo, Wallace and Gromit, nibbled cheese and invented new ways to embolden their friendship in a full-length feature. Last time, the hapless inventor, Wallace, and his dutiful K9 companion, Gromit, solved a spooky mystery in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This January, they’re facing off against an old foe and an army of destructive garden gnomes in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Before the film’s Netflix launch on January 3, we sat down with Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park and Vengeance Most Fowl co-director Merlin Crossingham to discuss the character’s most grand adventure in decades.

During our chat, Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham commented on Wallace and Gromit’s enduring appeal throughout the ages and whether they ever felt pressure to update the characters for new generations. We also talked with Merlin about moving from...

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is a faithful new installment to a beloved franchise, but it flips a key element that previous movies have used. Claymation maestro Nick Park and Aardman Studios have finally returned with a new Wallace & Gromit movie after nearly two decades, and it's already being celebrated with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Vengeance Most Fowl's cast includes Ben Whitehead, taking over the role of Wallace from the late Peter Sallis, Lauren Patel, Reece Shearsmith, and more.

The new film picks up with Wallace and Gromit up to their classic activities, though Wallace is worried about paying the bills. His recent inventions haven't panned out, but his neighbors discover that his new AI, Norbot, might be of some use and pay Wallace for his services. However, Norbot ends up set in evil mode, and he uses his work opportunities to steal from Wallace's neighbors. What...

Quick Links What Happens in 'Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit'? 'Wallace & Gromit' Always Finds Success

Wallace & Gromit are possibly the most iconic figures in all of stop-motion animation. Aardman Animation's characters have been a staple of British pop culture since their first appearance back in 1989. Yet despite that long history, there have been surprisingly few Wallace & Gromit projects. Their filmography totals just two feature films, four short films, and two TV miniseries. Those numbers do increase if you factor in the Shaun the Sheep and Timmy Time spin-off franchises. The duo's second film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, made its US debut on Netflix on January 3, 2025. This marks their first new appearance since the 2010 short series Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention.

Previously, their only feature was 2005's Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. A co-production between Aardman and DreamWorks Animation, Were-Rabbit...

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl sees a return to a beloved claymation animation franchise and, surprisingly, a subtle anecdote about police work. After decades, Aardman Animations and the BBC have returned for their latest collaboration, bringing back Wallace & Gromit with a new cast, along with other familiar faces and some fresh characters. Among those fresh characters is PC Mukherjee, a young policewoman under Chief Mackintosh's command who gets involved with the new case.

The Wallace & Gromit movies of the past have been primarily fun-loving and comedic, rarely touching on any important real-world material. The new film seems to broach two pertinent topics, examining the decision making on its police characters and offering some perspective on Artificial Intelligence. These undertones are rather subtle and not the main purpose of the movie, not deterring from the primary purpose which is to offer entertainment in a unique style of animation. Still,...

The great Roger Ebert once called Wallace and Gromit “arguably the two most delightful characters in the history of animation,” and who are we to argue with that? Ever since 1989, a Wensleydale cheese-loving inventor and his beloved dog have starred in four short films and two features, every one of these adventures utterly joyous. Without Wallace and Gromit, the great Aardman Animation possibly would’ve never been discovered outside the UK, and arguably stop-motion as a medium might not have ever gotten critical recognition.

Everyone knows the magic trick by now: creator Nick Park builds his sets and character models out of Plasticine modeling clay, adjusting them in every frame to give the illusion of movement. The effect still looks amazing to this day, and the care put into the craft is a huge part of what makes the franchise feel like such a labor of love. But there’s...

After a 20-year hiatus from the big screen, Wallace & Gromit make a triumphant return in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Following their Oscar-winning adventure in The Curse Of The Were-rabbit (2005), the iconic duo again proves that their charm and timeless appeal endure. Enhanced by advancements in stop-motion animation, this latest installment feels both nostalgic and refreshingly modern.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl continues an exceptional trend. Though the franchise began in 1989, it has been 17 years since the latest release, A Matter of Loaf and Death, which also happens to be the most underrated. The Walter & Gromit movies typically feature stop-motion animation, a gleeful man and his dog, and an evil penguin who seeks to destroy everything. Despite its bizarre premise, the series itself has earned over $421.2 million without accounting for inflation. The latest movie was released by Netflix on January 3, 2025.

After its release, Vengeance Most Fowl became a critical and audience success. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the movie earned exceptional reviews. At the time of writing, it sits at a 100% score on the critic-driven Tomatometer. On the audience-led Popcornmeter, it earned similar positivity with a 97% score. Both marks continue positive streaks for the franchise. It represents yet another success for Wallace & Gromit.

What Wallace...

Aardman Animations' Wallace and Gromit have stolen audiences' hearts since they debuted in the 1989 stop-motion animated short film, Wallace & Gromit: A Grand Day Out. The Oscar-winning British dog and inventor duo have appeared in multiple short films, plus a feature film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Now, they have a new feature film streaming on Netflix.

In Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Wallace introduces a new invention, the Nifty Odd-jobbing Robot, better known as Norbot. However, Wallace and Gromit's old enemy, the penguin Feathers McGraw, wants revenge. Feathers McGraw was introduced in the 1993 short film Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, where he tried to steal the Blue Diamond. Feathers is now serving time in a zoo, and he hacks the original Norbot to turn evil and create more Norbots.

Your changes have been saved

Email is sent

Email has already been sent

4.5/5 Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most...

"We problem-solve ahead by story-boarding." A series of behind-the-scenes videos have arrived online for Aardman's latest animated movie Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. These promos are also a reminder that this delightful, nerdy, wacky comedy is now available on Netflix worldwide to watch anytime you want. It's a blast! The "world's best boss" – Feathers McGraw – is back with a vengeance.

Few animated icons can say they have the widespread international appeal of Wallace and Gromit. The practical mascots of the stop-motion legends at Aardman Animation, the Wallace & Gromit series has endured for decades, and for good reason. The lighthearted adventures of a happy-go-lucky inventor and his faithful mute canine companion have captured the hearts of several generations, be it through beloved shorts like The Wrong Trousers or acclaimed feature films like The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

BAFTA on Friday unveiled its longlists for this year’s film awards with Emilia Pérez, Conclave, A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist and The Substance setting the pace.

Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical tops the longlists (15), including leading actress and supporting actress mentions for Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez. Edward Berger’s Conclave follows with 14 nods, including leading actor and supporting actor for Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci, respectively.

After that, it’s a three-way tie between Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (11). Sean Baker’s Anora is honored with nine mentions on the longlists, including for lead star Mikey Madison. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are included for their roles in Jon M. Chu’s Wicked, and Timothée Chalamet is among the leading actor list for his performance in A Complete Unknown.

Round two of voting kicks off Friday,...

The iconic claymation duo is back in Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, with a talented voice cast to bring them to life. The film series, which began with the 1989 animated short A Grand Day Out, is the brainchild of creator Nick Park, who returns as the filmmaker for the latest rendition over thirty years later. Wallace & Gromit movies take ages to make due to the meticulous attention to detail and the difficulty of making claymation films, and it seems even longer in an age where computer effects pump out movies at a rapid pace.

The late Peter Sallis gave his talent to the iconic voice of Wallace in the original Wallace & Gromit movies before passing away in 2017. The new actor, who's voiced the character before in video games, makes his debut as Wallace in film in Vengeance Most Fowl. As usual, Gromit doesn't speak, primarily emoting with facial expressions and gestures,...

There have been 19 long years since the last “Wallace & Gromit” movie, but creator Nick Park has finally brought the iconic stop-motion animated duo back with “Vengeance Most Fowl.” As the title suggests, the pair’s nemesis, silent killer Feathers McGraw, intends to exact some revenge after the events of 2005’s “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” For this go-around, Park has brought on longtime Aardman Animations contributor Merlin Crossingham to co-direct.

Continue reading Nick Park & Merlin Crossingham On Taking ‘Wallace & Gromit’ To “A Whole New Place” at The Playlist.

With the new year comes new entries into streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and more. From originals to films that Netflix has acquired for distribution to just old films that find a place on the streaming platform, it balances its slate each year. This month there are quite a few films from each category that will make it to Netflix screens.

A couple of classics are set to be available on the streaming platform from January 1. Films like 13 Going on 30, Dallas Buyers Club, Interstellar, Inception, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Erin Brockovich, Notting Hill, the Rush Hour franchise, and the Spider-Man trilogy from Sam Raimi are set to be available on Netflix. There are a few originals in the pipeline too.

1. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl – January 3, 2025 A still from Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl | Credits: Netflix

The British stop-motion animation franchise Wallace & Gromit...

Talk about a week with something truly for everyone, the last week of December features a variety of options – from a new Harlan Coben-based Netflix series (“Missing You”), a documentary about a weirdo millionaire who wants to be 18 again (“Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever” on Netflix) and a brand-new Wallace and Gromit movie (“Vengeance Most Fowl” on Netflix). That and so much more. Like we said – something for everyone.

On with the television!

Missing You Rosalind Eleazar as Kat Donovan in Missing You. (Credit: Vishal Sharma/Netflix)

Wednesday, Jan. 1, Netflix

Netflix’s latest Harlan Coben adaptation, following “Stay Close,” “Fool Me Once” and “The Stranger,” takes inspiration from his 2014 novel “Missing You.” Interestingly, the action has been transported from New York City to England (filming took place in and around Manchester and the North West of England), with a detective (Rosalind Eleazar) who gets involved...

Watching the new Wallace and Gromit feature Vengeance Most Fowl felt like a good blast of nostalgia. It gave a warm, comfortable, virtual hug while being hugely funny too. I will admit to having been slightly wary about their return to our TV screens after 16 years. Sometimes things are never as good after such a long gap. But there was no need for concern at all.

Wallace and Gromit are back with a bang, and plenty more sounds, under the guidance of Nick Park and Mark Burton. The animation series returned with Vengeance Most Fowl in a premiere at the American Film Institute in late October. It launches on Netflix worldwide on January 3, 2025 so everyone can get a chance to see it. But over here in the UK we had it served up earlier as a treat on BBC TV on Christmas Day. And what a treat that was.

Let's...

The cast of “Gavin & Stacey.” (Photo courtesy BBC Studios)

The series finale of the British sitcom “Gavin & Stacey” averaged 12.3 million viewers on Christmas Day, according to preliminary data released by the BBC.

The show, which aired on BBC One, posted 5 million more viewers than the King’s Christmas special carried live on the channels of BBC, ITV and Sky, ratings data showed. The Christmas Day message attracted 7 million viewers across broadcast, satellite and streaming platforms.

A new “Wallace and Gromit” film screened on BBC One attracted 9 million viewers, the public service broadcaster said on Thursday.

All data were based on “overnight” ratings figures, which do not include those who watched the Christmas Day specials and other programming on so-called “catch-up” services available on pay TV platforms and the Internet.

This article, “Gavin & Stacey” Christmas Day special draws 12 million to BBC, was first published at The Desk. To submit a news tip,...

“Gavin & Stacey: The Finale” proved a winner for the BBC in the U.K. Christmas Day ratings battle.

The long-awaited 90-minute special, which was written and exec produced by stars James Corden and Ruth Jones, pulled in 12.3 million viewers, equating to a 64.75% audience share, according to monitoring agency Overnights.TV.

Reviewers were also won over, with The Guardian calling it “a beautiful, poignant piece of television” while The Times of London’s reviewer gushed: “It is rare to get a communal ‘TV event’ these days but this felt like one. I doubt they could have ended it much better.”

Created by Corden and Jones, “Gavin & Stacey” first aired in 2007, running for three seasons until 2010 and becoming a cult hit. A Christmas Day special aired in 2019 and fans have repeatedly asked Corden — who until last year was busy hosting CBS’s “The Late Late Show” — when it would be returning for another outing.

Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park has confirmed the new movie Vengeance Most Fowl is “not the end”. The franchise is returning for its first feature-length installment since 2005’s The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

The stop-motion animated movie serves as a direct sequel to the 1993 short The Wrong Trousers, featuring the return of classic villain Feathers McGraw. Vengeance Most Fowl is also the first new Wallace & Gromit feature film since the death of original Wallace voice actor Peter Sallis in 2017 – with veteran voice actor Ben Whitehead taking over the role. In this long-awaited sequel, Gromit grows concerned with Wallace’s obsession with technology when he invents a “smart gnome” that soon develops a mind of his own. Wallace and Gromit discover that their old nemesis Feathers McGraw may be the mastermind behind the invention-gone-awry and must stop him from misusing the technology for nefarious means.

Vengeance Most Fowl Marks a New...

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl brings the beloved stop-motion characters back to the screen, and a new book by Titan Books reveals how it all came together. The new Wallace & Gromit movie comes 19 years after the last feature-length outing for the duo (The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), and 16 years after their most recent short (A Matter of Loaf and Death). The movie was written by Mark Burton from a story by Nick Park and Mark Burton, and directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham.

ScreenRant is able to share a first look at four pages from Titan Books’ The Art of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. The pages detail the making of key scenes and the reintroduction of a classic villain through behind-the-scenes photos and concept art. Interviews with Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl filmmakers also help tell the story of how the animated film came together. The Art...

One of the irresistible charms of Wallace And Gromit for many fans is not just that they are quintessentially British but that they are unmistakably northern. In a cinematic landscape dominated by Hollywood and bigger UK cities, it's a champion idea, those from the right neck of the woods might say. It's not just that Preston-born Nick Park (here directing with Merlin Crossingham and writing with Mark Burton) leans into it but that he does so with pride, secure in the knowledge that there are so many jokes of different sorts being made that if some of the references go over the heads of some audiences it will scarcely matter in the bigger scheme of things.

And scheming, of course, is what Wallace And Gromit films rest on, even if the hapless inventor (now voiced by Ben Whitehead since the death of much loved original vocalist Peter Sallis) isn't very good.

The creator of Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit has said this is “certainly not the end” for everyone’s favorite stop-motion duo, as he pays tribute to the late Peter Sallis on the eve of their latest outing.

“It’s certainly not the end,” Nick Park told the BBC. “I think there’s plenty of bounce still in their bungee. We’ll carry on. There’s always ideas worth kicking about.”

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl director Merlin Crossingham, however, stressed: “Give us a minute though. They take a while to make.”

Vengeance Most Fowl launches on Christmas Day on the BBC and early next year on Netflix. In a nod to the dangers of AI, the feature will see Wallace and Gromit’s friendship put to the test by the former’s invention of a smart gnome called Norbot, who takes on a life of his own, wreaking havoc in the process.