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Quick LinksThe Original True Grit Earned John Wayne His First Academy Award2010’s True Grit Contained Elements Truer to the Book Than the 1969 OriginalJohn Wayne Starred in a Sequel to True Grit Alongside Katharine Hepburn

1969's Western True Grit was an iconic role for long-time on-screen gunslinger John Wayne. He played a character largely against type and received wide praise for his performance as Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. The film is based on a book by Charles Portis that follows a young girl seeking to avenge her father's death with the assistance of hired guns. The reputation of the original film and its legendary status kept it from being touched by a remake for decades. But in 2010, Joel and Ethan Coen tried their hand at re-imagining the classic with great success.

Part of what made the reboot so successful was its attempt not to recreate the original but to...

Clark Gable was the Oscar-winning matinee idol who starred in dozens of films before his untimely death in 1960. Let’s take a look back at 12 of Gable’s greatest movies, ranked worst to best.

After appearing in bit parts in a number of films, Gable shot to stardom with his performance in “A Free Soul” (1931) as a gangster who bewitches a young woman (Norma Shearer) whose attorney father (Lionel Barrymore) helped him beat a murder rap. From there forward, the actor’s persona as a raffish leading man who’s every guy’s best friend and every gal’s dream became cemented in a number of subsequent roles.

He won an Oscar just three years later for Frank Capra‘s screwball classic “It Happened One Night” (1934), in which he played a newspaper reporter traveling with a spoiled socialite (Claudette Colbert). The film became the first to sweep the five major Oscars,...

For the first time in 47 years, all five Best Actress Oscar nominees hail from Best Picture nominees.

The Best Actress lineup was the top five in the odds: Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Mikey Madison (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), and Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here). Four of those films were widely predicted to score Best Picture nominations except for I’m Still Here, which was in 13th place in the odds; but in the biggest surprise of the day, the Brazilian feature made the cut on Thursday. The other Best Picture nominees are The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, and Nickel Boys.

The last time the Best Actress and Best Picture lineups aligned was during the 1977-78 season when Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) won Best Actress over Jane Fonda (Julia), Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl), and The Turning Point stars Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine.

Normally, when you think of the kinds of roles that lend themselves to Oscar nominations and wins, it’s the big, splashy attention-getters that usually come to mind. Playing a historical figure or an A-list celebrity in a biopic is usually a good bet, for example, as is any prestige role that can bury an actor under latex and prosthetics. But if you take a quick look at many of the professions of the characters that have led its actors to Oscar nominations, you’ll find one route that might surprise you — play a teacher.

In a way, that makes sense, because teachers are, in their own way, performers, communicating facts and ideas in the most persuasive way possible. Even so, there is a wide array of personalities drawn to teaching — from nurturing caregivers (John Keating in “Dead Poets Society” comes to mind) to borderline sociopaths — that have proven to...

Normally, when you think of the kinds of roles that lend themselves to Oscar nominations and wins, it’s the big, splashy attention-getters that usually come to mind. Playing a historical figure or an A-list celebrity in a biopic is usually a good bet, for example, as is any prestige role that can bury an actor under latex and prosthetics. But if you take a quick look at many of the professions of the characters that have led its actors to Oscar nominations, you’ll find one route that might surprise you — play a teacher.

In a way, that makes sense, because teachers are, in their own way, performers, communicating facts and ideas in the most persuasive way possible. Even so, there is a wide array of personalities drawn to teaching — from nurturing caregivers (John Keating in “Dead Poets Society” comes to mind) to borderline sociopaths — that have proven to...

For the second time in six years, the Best Actress category looked to be on track to feature nominees from films nominated for Best Picture. But just like six years ago, it came up short — and it once again involved Margot Robbie.

Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) made the Best Actress cut on Tuesday. Every film but “Nyad” is nominated for Best Picture. Gladstone, Hüller, Mulligan and Stone were all expected to get in, but Bening was in seventh place in the odds. Now a five-time nominee, she made it in over Robbie, who was in fifth place in the odds and headlines Best Picture nominee “Barbie” (Robbie is nominated as producer).

Six years ago, it was the reverse situation with Robbie. She earned her first career Oscar nomination for her...

In the 95-year history of the Academy Awards, 88 films have each received nominations for both Best Actor and Best Actress. Although there have been 19 cases of two or more movies doing so in a single year, there hasn’t been such an occurrence since 1996, when both lead lineups included performers from “Dead Man Walking” and “Leaving Las Vegas.” However, according to Gold Derby’s late-stage 2024 Oscar nominations predictions, that nearly three-decade gap is set to soon be closed by costar pairs from “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Maestro.”

The vast majority of the Oscars prognosticators who’ve been shaping our odds all season agree that Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) and Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) will all clinch academy mentions for their lead performances. The last such quartet consisted of eventual winners Nicolas Cage (“Leaving Las Vegas”) and Susan Sarandon (“Dead Man Walking”) and their respective costars,...

Eight decades ago, the United States was in the second full year of World War II. And there was little escape from the horrors of the global conflict. The war even dominated cinema-seven of the top ten films of the year were war-themed. The second highest grossing film of the year was “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” which opened on July 14, 1943, earning $6.3 million-nearly $3 million more than the beloved Oscar-winner “Casablanca,” which placed No 6 that year.

Paramount spared no expense bringing Ernest Hemingway’s 1940 novel set during the Spanish Civil War about Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer with a Republican guerrilla unit tasked with blowing up an important bridge. Hemingway witnessed the Spanish Civil War firsthand as a reporter for the North American Newspaper Alliance. In 1940, Paramount shelled out a staggering $150,000 for film rights. The New York Times wrote: “According to contract, Paramount paid Hemingway $100,000 for the property, agreeing to...

The original Max series “Full Circle” debuts on July 13. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the new drama investigates a kidnapping gone wrong in New York, revealing the secrets and lies of multiple characters. Or as the trailer warns: “Everything is connected.” The six-episode limited series stars Zazie Beetz, Claire Danes, Jim Gaffigan, Jharrel Jerome, Timothy Olyphant, and Dennis Quaid.

Watch the “Full Circle” trailer:

The four-part documentary “Last Call: When A Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York” is set in the early 1990s as the AIDS crisis worsens. The media’s distorted coverage of the gay victims, coupled with the homophobic biases of the criminal justice system, undermine the investigation. The docuseries — which premieres on Max on July 9 — illustrates how the LGBTQ+ community fought to solve the murders and demand attention for those murdered.

Preview “Last Call: When A Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York”:

Arriving on the platform on...

For every actor that wins multiple Oscars, there are others who, no matter how much they put into their roles and how much campaigning they do, just can’t make the conversion into winning their first Academy Award.

More often than not, it’s just a matter of bad timing, like being nominated for an Oscar in the same year as one of the four actors mentioned above. There’s just no way of knowing when you’re taking on a role or shooting a film or even once a movie gets out to the critics, how things might change in the time before Oscar night.

Scroll through our photo gallery above (or click here for direct access) to see the 25 actors with the most Oscar nominations and no wins. We include everyone who has been nominated for an acting award at least four times, with Glenn Close and Peter O’Toole...

Though the cinematic landscape has changed over the past five decades, one thing has remained the same: the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, New York Film Critics Circle and National Society Film Critics have agreed to disagree on many of their choices of the best of the year. So, let’s travel back to awards season 50 years ago and see what these groups selected as the finest in filmmaker in 1969.

Best Picture

Academy Awards: The year of 1969 was truly a watershed for cinema and the Oscars reflected the numerous changes taking place in Hollywood and internationally. The Academy had one foot in tradition and one foot in contemporary cinema. But in terms of best film, “X” marked the spot as “Midnight Cowboy,” the then-x-rated gritty and poignant drama took home the best picture honor. It was the only time in Oscar history, the Academy...

John Williams is only getting better with age.

The renowned composer scored his 52nd Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score for his work in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker on Monday.

Williams, 87, broke his own record with the nomination. The only other person Williams trails behind is Walt Disney, who received 59 Academy Award nominations including 22 total award wins, according to Forbes.

Williams has won a total of five Oscars for Schindler’s List, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Wars, Jaws and Fiddler on the Roof.

His first Oscar nomination came from composing the score for the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls.

A clutch of film buffs and staff writers at my favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, devoted considerable time, thought and space to a weekend article challenging 1939’s claim to the title of “Best Movie Year Ever.” Prompted by the number of critics appending “great” to 2018, the Post decided to look back and single out the greatest years in film, and after a brainstorming session, its writers settled on 1939 and six subsequent years — 1946, 1955, 1974, 1982, 1999, and 2007 — and assigned a sponsor to each one.

It was a cute idea and a fool’s errand if anyone’s ever been sent on one. It also produced fun reading, even if 1939 need not worry about its place in film history. There were unique reasons for 1939 (and ‘40 and ‘41) turning out so many enduring movies.

Hollywood had been recently and grudgingly unionized, giving directors in particular more power over their studio assignments. The country was in a dark mood,...