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Pusher and its two sequels make one of the best gangster movie trilogies of all time. The 1996 Danish film was director Nicolas Winding Refn's debut feature: an explosive way to begin a filmography that would later include other cult classics like Bronson, Drive and Only God Forgives. Eight years after making Pusher, Refn was inspired by ambitious TV series that were hits in the 2000s, like The Wire and The Sopranos, to turn his gangster story into a serialized effort. So, Pusher 2 came out in 2004 and Pusher 3 soon after, in 2005.

The trilogy explores the drug dealing scene in Copenhagen through three main characters, one at the forefront of each film. They are all pushers who take the drugs they sell, highlighting how most people involved in this illegal business are people with substance-use disorders themselves. Much like the greatest gangster trilogy of all time, The Godfather, the...

TrustNordisk has closed several distribution deals for a 4K remastered version of Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Pusher” trilogy, including “Pusher,” “Pusher II – With Blood on My Hands” and “Pusher III – I Am the Angel of Death.”

Distribution deals have been closed in Benelux with September Film Rights, Switzerland with Praesens Film, Germany with Plaion and Japan with Synca Creations. Movies Inspired in Italy and Blue Finch Film in the U.K. are also attached to distribute the film in those territories.

All three films, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn between 1996 and 2005, have undergone a thorough restoration process, and the first, “Pusher,” recently debuted at the Venice Film Festival, competing in the Venice Classics section. Not only does the trilogy stand out as a launchpad for the now-world-famous director, but the first two films were also vital in launching the career of actor Mads Mikkelsen, a longtime and frequent collaborator of Refn’s.

Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn hasn’t directed a movie since The Neon Demon was released eight years ago, but that’s all about to change. Variety reports that Refn is preparing to shoot his next movie in Tokyo next year, which will be in English and Japanese.

Despite once claiming that “cinema is dead,” Refn believes it’s the right time to return. “It’s a really interesting time to make movies because it’s such a chaotic situation,” he said. “So going back and making a theatrical feature film again is almost like — not starting over — but with all the changes in our societies in the last five years and technology changes, it almost seems like the right thing to do for me.“

There aren’t many details about Refn’s new movie, but he did promise that it “will have a lot of glitter and [a] lot of sex and violence.

A new month is here and Plex is back with the latest additions to its library of over 50,000 free-to-stream titles! From the Oscar-winning bio-drama “Spotlight” to the hit Danish crime thriller “Pusher” franchise, there is plenty to keep you entertained as October turns to November.

Check out The Streamable’s top picks for what’s new this month on Plex!

Watch Now Tba plex.tv What are the 5 Best Shows and Movies Coming to Plex in November 2023? “An American Werewolf In London” | Wednesday, Nov. 1

The 1981 hit John Landis comedy stars David Naughton and Griffin Dunne as a pair of American backpackers who are attacked by a werewolf while travelling in Yorkshire, turning one of them into a werewolf with the next full moon. Jenny Agutter, John Woodvine, Don McKillip, Frank Oz, Sydney Bromley, and more American and British greats make up the rest of the ensemble.

Watch the trailer for...

It’s telling, and maybe also a little paradoxical, that of the huge array of Nordic talent assembled onstage at the Scandinavian tribute last week at the Marrakech Film Festival, the honor itself was accepted (on the delegation’s behalf) by Nicolas Winding Refn. Telling, because it shows just how sky-high the director’s profile is, despite, or maybe because of, the mixed reaction to this year’s “Only God Forgives,” the follow-up to his Cannes-busting “Drive.” A little paradoxical, because it really feels that Refn can be less and less associated with the region of his birth these days: his last truly Danish film was 2005’s “Pusher 3” and his ongoing association with Ryan Gosling, along with his interest in non-European settings and cultures, makes him feel more international-with-maybe-an-independent-American-edge than anything else. Still, we won’t complain as it gave us another chance to talk to the director, in a small group of press,...

Digital Spy was fortunate enough to score a sizeable amount of time in the company of acclaimed filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn in support of the DVD release of Only God Forgives. A thematically audacious and visually stunning movie, this twisted tale of Ryan Gosling's taciturn drugs dealer becoming embroiled with a vengeance-fuelled policeman called Chang has polarised audiences. But what is it really about? We probed its maker, before delving further into his career to explore the likes of Pusher and Bronson. As for the future, Bond, Beckham and Barbarella are all on the agenda...

Since its release, Only God Forgives has inspired many different interpretations. What's the weirdest one you've encountered so far?

"My favourite one is when a German woman at Cannes came up to me and said, 'I think this movie takes place in the vagina, yes?' I was like, 'Yeah, that's pretty spot on,...

Here's a bit of news I'm happy to see out in the wild ...Twitch is proud to present With Blood On His Hands, a complete retrospective of the films of Nicolas Winding Refn screening at the Tiff Bell Lightbox in Toronto from October 23rd - November 5th. Refn will be on hand for the opening weekend to present screenings of Pusher and Bleeder as well as presenting a special screening of Andy Milligan's Fleshpot on 42nd Street. Also presented will be seldom seen documentary Gambler, which chronicles the creation of Pusher 2 and Pusher 3 as Refn struggles to recover from the financial failure of Fear X. Click here for tickets and screening times and read on for the full announcement! With Blood on His...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Each week within this column we strive to pair the latest in theatrical releases to worthwhile titles currently available on Netflix Instant Watch. But this week, we pay tribute to the thoroughly thriller filmmakers whose next efforts are among our Most Anticipated Films of 2012!

From some of Tarantino’s early offerings, to the best of the Coen Brothers, to the genre experiments of Chan-wook, and the emerging talent of Winding Refn, we’ve got you covered with some seriously striking movies now available online.

Pictured below in his cameo role in the East meets West action-flick Sukiyaki Western Django—the ever-edgy American auter will take on a new brand of revenge narrative in 2012 with Django Unchained. Jamie Foxx stars as a slave-turned-bounty hunter on a bloody quest to save his wife from a menacing slave owner. Leonardo DiCaprio, Christopher Waltz, and Sacha Baron Cohen co-star.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) Tarantino’s blistering...

While the concept of a Danish martial arts film sounds considerably less strange now than it did before the arrival of the excellent Fighter a few years back it's still surprising enough that it merits a mention.

Director Stefano Gonzalez and actor / co-producer David Sakurai (yes, I know, a very unlikely pair of Danish names) recently got together with Pusher 3 co-star Marinela Dekic (also not sounding like a Dane) to create a low budget short film titled Love Is Vengeance. Spun out from a comic book concept and intended as a tribute to Bruce Lee, those involved enjoyed the process enough that Gonzalez and Sakurai are now prepping a feature length martial arts affair titled The Elite.

Still in early development they plan to shoot an early test sequence / promo reel for the film in the very near future but those who want an idea of what's coming can...

Shaky Gonzalez's award winning "The Last Warrior" is being billed as a noteworthy tribute to the great PAsploitation flicks of the 1980s (read: anything by Enzo G. Castellari). It has a great cast in Marinela Dekic (Pusher 3), Erik Holmey (Conan The Barbarian) and introducing Maja Mae as a woman of the wastekland out for revenge.

There's scant info available on the film, but we've been given the film's official poster and a couple of stills to share. And luckily, the film is getting a release on the the Scandinavian "Wasteland Tales" DVD that streets tomorrow, so we'll have a review to you soon.

Check out some 80s Pa awesomeness after the break!

Head to Quiet Earth to see the stills.

The characters in Nicolas Winding Refn's films remind one of the famous tale of the scorpion and frog. They're trapped by compulsive behavior, often against their better natures. A small-time drug dealer in "Pusher" (1996), the director's breakthrough debut, seems to go further and further into debt the more he tries to pay back a brutal gangster. In "Pusher 3" (2005), that same brutal gangster, trying to find some normalcy in his middle age, is sucked into a whirlpool of harrowing violence. In "Bronson" (2008), real-life British prison inmate Charlie Bronson is constantly on the search for a fight, even though it only results in him becoming even more confined; he fights, therefore he is.

The characters in "Valhalla Rising," the director's new hallucinatory Viking epic, are no different. These warriors cannot shed themselves of the violence, madness and paranoia that define their world. The Danish director responsible for this brutal and...

What do you do if you're the producers of one of the biggest genre hits in your region's history?  If you're the producers of Norwegian zombie comedy Dead Snow you bring back the whole crew that made that earlier effort so successful, pick another genre, recruit a few new faces - preferably specialists in the new playground - and you do it again, that's what!

Dead Snow producers Kjetil Omberg and Terje Stromstad are poised to release their latest effort, Tomme Tonner, on the world in January.  And, yes, fans of Dead Snow, almost the entire cast have parts in the ensemble here - including an acting role for Dead Snow director Tommy Wirkola - with regional favorites Kim Bodnia (Pusher) and Kristoffer Joner (Next Door) taking the leads.  And who's that standing behind Bodnia in the poster?  Yep, that's Slavko Labovic, who will always be known as that guy...

A few new clips slipped by us right as last week ended at the holiday weekend began. Well, two of them slipped by, and I hedged on posting the clip from Survival of the Dead at first because it's fairly lousy, and that makes me sad. See all three (or whichever ones you choose) after the break. Up first is the clip from 2012, courtesy of MTV. If you thought for a moment that this movie might be less idiotic than all of Roland Emmerich's other movies, this clip should kill the doubt. But, there is something beautiful here. This is the clip that made me realize the awesome Zlatko Buric, who played the drug dealer Milo in all three Pusher films, is in 2012. (Here's the trailer for Pusher 3, which is the one that really features Buric.)  He's the guy in this clip that leans up and helps John...

• Pusher 3 : I’M The Angel Of Death Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn returns with the third installment in his celebrated Pusher trilogy. Heroin peddler Milo encounters a series of violent setbacks over the span of 24 hours that threaten to cut off both his daughter’s 25th birthday celebrations and the breath in his lungs. Pusher 3 is in many ways the opposite of the relentless punishment that defined the start of this series. Much more meditative, P3 begins in relatively mundane fashion and builds to it’s inevitably (this Is Pusher after all) violent climax. The film’s legitimacy lies in the way it’s characters treat the mayhem that surrounds them with a matter-of-fact blandness, as though their dystopian existence is life’s only truth. P3 offers us a glimpse of a day in the life of these immensely interesting characters rather than suggesting their story

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• Fantasia Film Festival 2006 Poster More Fantasia coverage on Ioncinema : > Interview w/ Stuart Gordon for Edmond > Review of Edmond > Capsule Review: Pusher 3 : I’m The Angel Of Death > Capsule Review: The Five Venoms > Capsule Review: Re-Cycle > Capsule Review: Strange Circus > Capsule Review: Hell > Capsule Review: The Great Yokai War > Capsule Review: Neighborhood Watch > Capsule Review: A Bittersweet Life > Capsule Review: Evil Aliens > Capsule Review: Lunacy > Capsule Review: Negadon : The Monster From Mars > Capsule Review: The Art of Fighting > Capsule Review: Wilderness > Capsule Review: Meatball Machine > Capsule Review: Sukeban Boy > Capsule Review: The Descent > Capsule Review: Tokyo Zombie > Fantasia Under the Stars > Fantasia 2006 Complete Preview 1 : Asian Films > Fantasia 2006 Complete Preview 2 : American and European Films > Fantasia 2006 Complete Preview 3 : Spotlights > The Woods gets N-American premiere > Fantasia 2006 Top 10 Must See Flicks > Fantasia 2006 Preview > Fantasia 2005 Archives ...

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