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Ilya Naishuller's 2021 action flick "Nobody" starred Bob Odenkirk as a boring office wonk named Hutch who has lost all the respect his wife and kid may have ever had for him. He's a nobody. Of course, the twist is that Hutch has, all this time, been a secret government-employed badass who is highly trained in fighting, firearms, and exciting action violence. He tries not to start fights because he could easily murder any potential attacker. By the end of the film, Hutch will have become involved in a plot of the Russian mafia, forcing him to fight back and kill dozens of people. More importantly, Hutch's family -- and most notably his wife, Becca (Connie Nielsen) -- will see what a badass he's been this whole time. 

There is a satiric element to "Nobody" that rings morally irresponsible (but in a delightful way). It clearly serves as a violent...

The notion that sex and violence are primarily what sells has been a long-standing axiom in numerous industries, but particularly in entertainment. Human beings are inexorably drawn to the darker side of life and wish to have experiences that safely allow them to indulge in these concepts and feelings. Yet censorship has always existed in the arts for a variety of reasons, which are too complex and culturally varied to go into here. Suffice it to say that artists have always found clever ways of subverting and getting around such restrictions. This is why, when watching a film that was made in America during the Hays Production Code, you can often find moments and themes that are incredibly clever in how they handle risqué elements, the better to fool the censors but not the audience.

Eventually, of course, the Hays Code fell apart, ushering in the era of the Motion...

Lollapalooza 2025 kicked off in Chicago’s Grant Park on a high note Thursday. Tyler, the Creator made his triumphant return to the festival after canceling last year’s headlining set, and Luke Combs also served as a headliner, marking the first time the festival featured a country act in a top slot. Ahead of the fest closers, Gracie Abrams wowed fans with a surprise appearance from Robyn, Cage the Elephant paid tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, and many more artists made waves. Here are some of the highlights from Day One of this year’s edition.

Most of us are pretty used to the idea that horror movies are a great way for up-and-coming actors to get a foothold in the film industry. That's primarily thanks to the horror boom of the 1980s, giving opportunities to numerous thespians who went on to become A-list actors; folks like Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Meg Ryan, and others. Yet the notion of horror giving a first chance to future stars is not relegated to the last 40-odd years. Sure, horror's reputability certainly wavered during the classic Hollywood years, meaning that studio horror films weren't as prolific as Westerns were, and thus many more young actors found themselves riding a horse more often than running around a spooky castle. Yet horror's always been popular, and during the 1950s, the studios began to get excited about a new gimmick which would briefly revitalize the genre: 3D.

1953's "House of Wax" is,...

Whether it's critically acclaimed classics like Die Hardand Pulp Fictionor easy-viewing action flicks like 2022's Gasoline Alley, Bruce Willisand his iconic filmography will always prove popular, especially in light of his illness-induced retirement three years ago. From the latter category, another of Willis' testosterone-fueled action thrillers has found success in 2025, becoming one of the ten most-streamed titles on MGM+ in the U.S., as of July 21, 2025, per FlixPatrol.

That movie is Death Wish, a 2018 remake of the 1974 film of the same name, following Willis' Dr. Paul Kersey as he vows to take revenge on the perpetrators of a horrific crime that left his wife and young daughter the victims of a brutal attack. Also starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Greyhound's Elisabeth Shue, and Law & Order: Organized Crime's Dean Norris, the movie was helmed by Eli Roth, six years before he would bring the disastrous adaptation of Borderlands to the big screen.

Gracie Abrams is back on the road in North America for her The Secret of Us Deluxe Tour!

The 25-year-old singer performed to two sold out crowds in Boston this week at Td Garden.

She is set to continue on Saturday (July 226) in Toronto, before heading to New York City for two shows at Madison Square Garden. Gracie will also head to Los Angeles, Denver and Mexico City, with festival performances including Lollapalooza, Osheaga Festival and Outside Lands.

As her concert tour continues, we’ve got the updated set list in full right here!

Keep reading to find out more…

Related: Gracie Abrams & Paul Mescal Are ‘True Lovebirds,’ Insider Says While Giving Update on Their Relationship!

The Secret of Us Deluxe Tour Setlist

1. Risk

2. Blowing Smoke

3. 21

4. I Love You, I’m Sorry

5. Where do we go now?

6. Death Wish

7. Normal Thing

8. Friend

9. Mess It Up

10. Packing It Up

11. Full machine...

MGM+ subscribers cannot get enough of an overlooked action remake starring Bruce Willis. Death Wish, a modern-day remake of the classic Charles Bronson-led action flick, has begun climbing the Top 10 chart on the streaming service.

According to FlixPatrol, as of July 24, Death Wish is ranked No. 8 on MGM+'s Top 10 chart, up one spot from the day before. Released in 2018, Death Wish stars Willis as Dr. Paul Kersey, a Chicago-based surgeon who sets out to exact vengeance on the culprits responsible for attacking his family. The vigilante action thriller also stars Vincent D'Onofrio (Daredevil: Born Again), Elisabeth Shue (The Boys), and Dean Norris (Breaking Bad), among others.

Bronson originated the role of Paul Kersey in the Death Wish franchise, appearing in the first five films — Death Wish (1974), Death Wish II (1982), Death Wish 3 (1985), Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987), and Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994). A remake was announced in 2006; however,...

I love a good revenge flick. While there are some classics—Revenge, Hard Candy, and I Saw the Devil if you’re in the market for some contemporary flair—even the bad ones still target this simple yet innate desire to see justice achieved. Is it often the case in real life? No, not usually, but that’s why I go to the movies. I want to see some poor sap come into his own to avenge whomever it is they’ve lost.

Some of the horror greats have dabbled in the subgenre. James Wan helmed 2007’s Death Sentence, and The Babadook’s Jennifer Kent’s sophomore effort The Nightingale, is one of the century’s best movies. Period. Give me all the revenge. All the blood. All the melodrama and moral quandaries. Even better, give me a certified nerd in the lead. Such was the case with James Hawes’ The Amateur,...

Writer, producer and director Rohit Karn Batra’s The Film Compartment has announced that Jack Kesy has joined the drama “The Gun on Second Street” as the lead actor.

Guy J. Louthan of Ransom Films will produce with Batra. Rikin Shah, U.S. Congressman Eric Swalwell and Projected Picture Works partners Sean Penn, John Ira Palmer and John Wildermuth will executive produce. Production on the film is set to begin in the fall.

Kesy is best known for his roles in films including “Deadpool 2,” “12 Strong, Baywatch” and “Deathwish,” as well as television series such as “Claws” and “The Strain.” He will next be seen in Apple TV’s upcoming heist series “12 12 12” alongside Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan.

The film is an allegory of the gun crisis in the United States, following two Pittsburgh police partners and best friends who are called to an uneventful domestic violence dispute on Second Street.

Charles Bronson could not happen today. Born to Lithuanian immigrants in 1921, Brosnan began working in a Pennsylvania coal mine at the age of 12 to help maintain the family's income after the death of his father. It was a miserable existence. The Great Depression hit his family hard. Meals could be scarce and shelter seemed ever endangered. Despite these hardships, Bronson managed to graduate from high school and ultimately left Appalachia to serve as an aerial gunner in the U.S. Air Force during World War II.

After the war, Bronson moved to Hollywood and studied acting. At 5 '8," he was not an overpowering presence, but there was a coiled intensity to his early performances that must've been rooted in the tension of his hard-working childhood. Bronson felt determined, formidable -- and, in many of his early roles, shockingly vulnerable.

Bronson was not a method actor, but he took his craft very seriously.

"Death Wish" began its life in 1972 as a Brian Garfield novel. The story followed Paul Benjamin, a mild-mannered accountant living in a dangerous neighborhood in pre-Giuliani New York. He has spent his adult life being a civic volunteer and trying to mitigate crime in the city, feeling that society was merely out of whack. Paul does a philosophical 180, however, when criminals break into his apartment, steal his stuff, beat his wife to death, and leave his daughter in a vegetative state. He immediately becomes bitter, angry, and violent, evolving into a pro-police conservative so quickly it actually disturbs his conservative friends. Before long, Paul even takes to the streets with a gun in his pocket and starts committing lethal acts of vigilante justice.

The book ends with a cop catching Paul in the middle of a murder ... and then letting him go free. It's a polemic about humanity's natural tendencies...

Star Trek Tos has and will remain the singular architect for Star Trek canon and all its wildly successful spin-off live-action and animation series. With over $10 Billion in worldwide revenue across the Star Trek collective universe of movies, series, merchandise, books/comics, and derivative works – outside of Tos, one series stands alone as the most influential above all others, and it’s not what you may think and here’s why.

The titular Federation’s most influential diplomat, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and his courageous crew of the USS Enterprise-d in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) is the most expansively influential series in Star Trek canon. Set in the 24th Century this series has been the catalyst for various spin-off series and continuity characters and storylines that you may know.

Nov. 2, 2015 – CBS Television Studios announced today it will launch a totally new “Star Trek” television series in January 2017. Commander Sisko...

Star Trek fans surely got a kick out of seeing Star Trek III: The Search for Spock villain Christopher Lloyd co-starring as Doc Brown alongside Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. And those same fans no doubt loved it when Marty, disguised and masking his voice, identifies himself to his future father as “Darth Vader… from the planet Vulcan,” and proceeds to offer the patented split-fingered Vulcan greeting.

But… a document from 1984, from the office of Back to the Future’s casting directors, Fenton-Feinberg Casting, reveals that several other familiar Star Trek names were considered before director Robert Zemeckis chose Lloyd. Among those considered: Joe Piscopo, Rene Auberjonois, Paul Dooley, Kevin Conway, and Gerrit Graham. Piscopo later played The Comic in the Star Trek: The Next Generation second-season episode, “The Outrageous Okona,” which premiered in 1988. Auberjonois joined the Star Trek universe in 1991, playing Colonel West...

Tubi is adding lots of free movies and shows in July. There’s something for everyone to watch. All the titles listed below will start streaming on July 1, unless stated otherwise. Take a look and see what’s new!

1. Originals

Great White Waters (7/4),

Get Off My Lawn (7/11),

Tko (7/18)

2. Series Spotlight

“Brickleberry”

“Girlfriends”

“Hap & Leonard”

“Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell”

“Kold & Windy (S1)”

“Major Dad”

“Millennials”

“Sanford and Son”

“The Jeffersons (S11 & S1)”

“Wow: Women of Wrestling (S2-S3)”

3. Action

“12 Rounds”

“2 Guns”

“Baywatch”

“Escape Plan”

“Escape Plan 2: Hades”

“Escape Plan: The Extractors”

“First Blood”

“Hitman”

“Hitman: Agent 47”

“Jurassic World”

“Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life”

“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider”

“Non-Stop”

“Redemption”

“The A-Team (2010)”

“The Fate of the Furious”

“Universal Soldier”

4. Art House

“A Most Violent Year”

“American Honey”

“Bones and All”

“Clemency”

“Hot Summer Nights”

“Rye Lane”

“The Captive”

“Under the Silver Lake”

“When You Finish Saving the World...

Tubi, Fox’s free streaming service, has announced its list of July titles. The Tubi July 2025 slate features new Tubi Originals, TV series, and numerous action, art house, Black cinema, comedy, documentary, drama, horror, kids and family, sci-fi and fantasy, thriller, and Western titles.

As a leading ad-supported video-on-demand service, the company engages diverse audiences through a personalized experience and the world’s largest content library of over 250,000 movies and TV episodes, a growing collection of exclusive Originals, and nearly 250 live channels.

You can watch the Tubi July 2025 lineup for free on Android and iOS mobile devices, Amazon Echo Show, Google Nest Hub Max, Comcast Xfinity X1, and Cox Contour.

You can also watch the service on connected television devices, including Amazon Fire TV, Vizio TVs, Sony TVs, Samsung TVs, Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, Android TV, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and on the Tubi website.

Tubi Originals

Action

Great...

June is a big month for Peacock. Fans of dinosaurs and sharks have a lot to look forward to. All six Jurassic Park movies will be streaming in one place for the first time. This comes just in time before Jurassic World Rebirth hits theaters in July.

Also, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jaws, Peacock will add all four Jaws movies to its library. There’s even more coming too! Check out the full list of new shows and movies below.

June 1

Adventures of Priscilla Queen of The Desert

Anna and The Apocalypse

The Best Man

The Big Lebowski

The Birdcage

Blue Crush

Bride of Chucky

The ‘Burbs

Capote

Captain Phillips

The Chronicles of Riddick

A Cowgirl’s Story

Daddy Day Care

The Day After Tomorrow

Death Wish

Deep Rising

Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights

Erin Brockovich

A Fantastic Woman

Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades Freed

Fifty Shades of Grey...

Peacock has announced the lineup of movies, TV shows, and live sports that will be available on the streaming service in June. The Peacock June 2025 schedule includes The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets, Jaws‘ 50th anniversary, Love Island USA Season 7, and Nelly & Ashanti: We Belong Together.

Plus, catch new weekly episodes of Poker Face Season 2, as Natasha Lyonne continues her cross-country mystery-solving adventure. And don’t miss the Law & Order: Organized Crime Season 5 finale on June 12, as Detective Stabler faces one of his most intense cases yet.

Love Island USA Season 7

This month’s sizzling line-up kicks off in Fiji when a new group of sexy singles searching for love unite in the villa for season seven of Love Island USA, premiering exclusively on Peacock June 3.

Love is in the air (and on tour!) in the brand-new Peacock Original docuseries Nelly & Ashanti: We Belong Together. Viewers...

Thanksgivingstar Nell Verlaque has offered an exciting update on the horror movie's sequel. Eli Roth will return as director for the second installment of the horror franchise.

Verlaque, who played serial killer John Carver's nemesis Jessica in the first film, told Deadline on Monday (May 19) that she was "really excited" to get back on set for Thanksgiving 2. She also confirmed that filming is tentatively scheduled to take place very soon.

Nell Verlaque Offers New Hints about Thanksgiving 2

"I think we will be filming this year," she confirmed. "I actually just saw Eli, and we’re talking about some plot points, so I’m really excited for it."

Roth's 2023 hit made more than $46 million at the worldwide box office against a modest budget of only $15 million. The holiday-themed horror movie achieved critical acclaim as well as commercial success, as it received a 84% critical score and a 78% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Joe Don Baker, beloved character actor who populated classic films from “Walking Tall” to “Cape Fear” with his unique spin on the brawny Texan persona, is dead at 89, his family announced. He is survived by a circle of friends and extended relations in his hometown of Groesbeck, Texas.

Standing six-foot, two inches and built like a brick wall, he was a natural athlete, playing basketball and football in high school, and attending North Texas State College on an athletic scholarship. Graduating in 1958, and after spending two years in the army, he moved to New York City to study at the Actors Studio, landing his debut in Manhattan theater in “Marathon ’33” in 1963. Small parts in Westerns on TV followed: “The Big Valley,” “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke,” and, notably, the pilot episode of “Lancer,” where he played the villain — a Tarantino-ized version of which was played by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton in...

Severin continues their good work in bringing hitherto largely unavailable Russ Meyer titles to home video in glorious new 4K restorations. Their latest releases are Motorpsycho, a gritty genre mashup that’s been unjustly dismissed as merely a “dry run” for the better known Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and the late-period gonzo comedy Up!, involving, among other things, leather gimp masks and an orgy-loving Adolf Hitler.

Motorpsycho, from 1965, starts off as a rip-roaring exposé of a renegade biker gang led by troubled Vietnam vet Brahmin (Stephen Oliver). He’s joined by Slick (Thomas Scott), who has a fondness for his transistor radio, and Dante (Joseph Cellini), whose major signifier as a character is that he spouts off in Italian when he gets excitable. These two are, in true Meyer fashion, little more than caricatures, but Brahmin actually gets to display some nuance in his role. Mind you, these are far...

Charlie Heller, the bereaved rookie vigilante Rami Malek plays in The Amateur, is all brains and no brawn. That sets him apart from his colleagues at the CIA, where he works as a cryptographer, running numbers while they run down suspects. It also distinguishes him, of course, from the Jason Bournes and James Bonds of the world — the perfect physical specimens that usually headline globe-hopping espionage claptrap of this sort. The Amateur takes off from a hooky hypothetical: What if the most intelligent man in central intelligence had to leave...

“A Minecraft Movie” will lead the box office again as several newcomers, including Universal and Blumhouse’s pulse-quickening “Drop” and Rami Malek-led spy thriller “The Amateur,” open this weekend on the big screen.

Warner Bros. and Legendary’s PG comedy “Minecraft” topped the box office last weekend with a record-breaking $162.7 million, the biggest debut of the year and largest ever for a video game adaptation. In its second weekend, “A Minecraft Movie” is projecting a 50% to 60% decline with ticket sales around $65 million to $82 million. However given its trajectory, box office watchers wouldn’t be surprised if it lands in the realm of Universal’s video game smash “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (which declined by just 37% in its second weekend with $92 million) or “Barbie” (another unexpected blockbuster that opened to $162 million and dropped by 42% in its sophomore outing with $93 million). “Minecraft” has generated more than $320 million globally so far...

Charlie Heller (Rami Malek), the mad-as-hell secret-agent geek brainiac at the center of “The Amateur,” is a CIA analyst who works five floors underground at Langley, in the Decryption and Analysis department. There, he’s a master of all things coded and virtual, a surveillance hacker par excellence. Out of the office, he and his adoring business-person wife, Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), reside in a renovated farmhouse and appear to have the perfect life. So when Sarah, on a corporate trip to London, gets taken hostage by a cadre of terrorists and is killed on the spot, it’s as if Charlie’s entire existence had been wiped away. Since the tragedy was an international incident, his bosses at the Agency assure him that the perpetrators will be hunted down. But that’s not enough for Charlie. It won’t sate his rage, his desire for vengeance. Instead, Charlie says, “I want to kill them himself.

Tom Hardy is, no surprise, terrific as mob fixer Harry da Souza in Guy Ritchie’s series “MobLand,” which debuted on Paramount+ on Sunday night. As with his previous criminal characters, he brings the necessary ruthlessness and brute power to the role.

While we wait for more episodes to roll out, why not revisit some of his best performances working with some of the best directors in the business, including Christopher Nolan, Nicolas Winding Refn and Alejandro González Iñárritu.

From an alien-possessed reporter to a gleefully garish supervillain, we love him at all decibel levels.

Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Credit: Jack English/Focus Features) 8. Ricki Tarr in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”

In this stacked cast, Hardy plays a lower-level operative who’s stumbled onto a dangerous secret, one that’s already gotten a number of people killed. It’s rare to see the actor...

Not every actor can be one of the greats, but they make a memorable impression based on how filmmakers play to their strengths. Charles Bronson is one of those actors. He didn't exactly break the mold as an expressive actor, but there's a flexibility in his stoicism that could present a two-way mirror depending on the kind of character he was playing. Legends like Sergio Leone ("Once Upon a Time in the West") and John Sturges ("The Great Escape") knew as much.

If there's one film that defines the definitive Bronson look and feel, it's Michael Winnerman's revenge fantasy "Death Wish." Paul Kersey is an architect turned nighttime vigilante who vows to clean up the streets after his wife is murdered and his daughter is sexually assaulted during a home invasion. Not much changes when it comes to Bronson's performance across the increasingly ridiculous five film series, as the character's quiet bloodthirst remains fairly consistent.

Gracie Abrams is back with a new track, and it’s called “Death Wish.”

The song first debuted live at the O2 Arena back in March of 2025 during the London stop of the singer-songwriter’s The Secret of Us Tour, and now it’s out as of Tuesday (April 1)!

She also revealed the meaning behind the song before its live debut.

“This song is about a friend of mine who recently was dating, like, a mega narcissist…a sincere friend of mine was recently dating someone who kind of sucked. And I was listening to them talk about it a lot, and so this song is about that!” she said.

Keep reading to find out more…

On March 31, Gracie shared a clip of the live performance to Instagram to announce that the live recording would be released that night.

“This is the first and only time I’ve played this song,...

Gracie Abrams announced via Instagram on Tuesday that she’s dropping an official recording of “Death Wish,” a gorgeous, wistful piano ballad that became an instant fan favorite despite being played just once so far — at London’s O2 Arena earlier this month. The released version was captured live at that performance.

“Thank you to everyone who was in the room that night,” Abrams wrote. “I love you and I miss you and maybe you’ll be able to hear yourself in the recording.”

At midnight, she officially released it.

Action megastar Jason Statham still looks powerful for a man inching toward 60. And the older he gets, the more worn and lived-in his face becomes, like my therapist’s leather couch. So what if he doesn’t take off his shirt as much anymore? He’s built like a wrestler, but graceful, too, an experienced kickboxer with a trademark, face-smashing spinning back-kick. In A Working Man, the U.K.-born Statham stars as an all-American man’s man with a Cockney accent (he was a Royal Marine long ago, you...

Warning: The following article contains extensive spoilers for the 1976 film Taxi Driver.Universally praised in 1976, Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver is a nightmarish glimpse into post-Vietnam America without clear-cut heroes or villains. Unbeknownst to fans at the time, this film went through a radical rewrite, changing the race of one of the most crucial characters in the film. The race-swap is something that has come up in conversation; Quentin Tarantino notably second-guesses the decision as a clumsy compromise forced upon the film by filmmakers who lost their nerve.

Starring Robert De Niro — with Cybil Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, and Jodie Foster in critical supporting roles — the neo-noir was allegedly so controversial that it narrowly avoided an X-rating. It could have been worse. Roaming the urban decay is Travis Bickle, a cabbie picking up the city's "animals" by night, an alienated Vietnam veteran spiraling into a grimy, urban abyss. Preparing a war against no one in particular,...

There’s something inherently exciting about a thriller that takes place entirely within one apartment building or complex — a setting that is contained while threatening potentially nasty surprises behind every door. Prolific indie writer-director-producer Wes Miller’s Orlando-shot “Black Heat” doesn’t offer much more than that basic concept, yet he keeps this high-body-count action exercise pounding along in lively if blunt fashion.

Starring “Straight Outta Compton’s” Jason Mitchell and Tabatha Robinson (aka rapper DreamDoll) as parents rescuing their daughter from criminals at a sprawling housing project, the film could have used some additional polish in terms of both script and style. Still, it’s got enough propulsive energy to keep viewers entertained. Dark Star Pictures and production company BLacklight are co-releasing to over 200 U.S. theaters on March 28.

In the opening sequence, marital couple Malik (Mitchell) and Alexis (Robinson) are traveling in their SUV, bantering about favorite movies like “Boyz n the Hood,...

If action movies from the ’80s get your blood pumping, you’ll want to pay attention to the hype behind David Ayer and Jason Stathams latest cinematic beat-down, A Working Man. The first reactions to the duo’s latest display of one-man-army madness are making the rounds on social media. From the look of things, we’ve got many reasons to get excited about Statham’s latest showcase of badassery and body-sending one-liners.

According to JoBlo’s Editor-in-Chief, Chris Bumbray, A Working Man is a “campy B-movie blast” that starts off low-key but quickly ramps up with demented madness.

A Working Man is a campy B-movie blast. Statham kills hundreds. Stallone’s script is eighties-style madness (a compliment) and Ayer’s direction is on point. Similar to Beekeeper in that it starts low key and gets more demented (gloriously so) as it goes on.

— Chris Bumbray (@cbumbray) March 25, 2025

Meanwhile, Variety...

Following the monumental success of last year’s The Beekeeper, action movie icon Jason Statham returns to the big screen this week with the equally brilliant-looking A Working Man. Well, we say “equally brilliant,” but based on the first reactions, the reunion of Statham and The Beekeeper’s David Ayer is sounding even better.

Beginning with X/Twitter user and critic @NextBestPicture, A Working Man finds Statham at his absolute best, with the "no-nonsense blockbuster” delivering nothing less than “relentless entertainment, packed with hard-hitting set pieces and a Statham performance that’s as fierce as it is grounded.”

“A Working Man is easily my favorite Jason Statham-led action film in quite some time. Leaps and bounds better than his last collaboration with David Ayer. While it may run a bit long, this blue-collar, no-nonsense blockbuster delivers relentless entertainment, packed with hard-hitting set pieces and a Statham performance that’s as fierce as it is grounded.

Actors love to talk about authenticity, but if that were all it took, we wouldn't need them at all -- cops, lawyers, and singles on the prowl could just play themselves. There's more to it than that, of course, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to have a background in the role being played. Many former Marines have done well as actors, using their discipline for our entertainment. And as it turns out, many thespians with actual criminal records do a great job of playing crooks onscreen. As 2024's Oscar-nominated film "Sing Sing" depicts, theater programs can serve as therapy, and serve to reform offenders.

Throughout the history of the movie business, real-life criminals have found the movie business to be more comfortable than their former under-the-table careers. Audiences, in turn, can often tell when a guy onscreen really looks like he could kill or beat you. In some cases, showbiz...

This April, Legend is digging deep into the vault of genre-defining cinema with a line-up of channel premieres guaranteed to thrill, provoke and entertain. The network’s spring slate reads like a who’s who of cult filmmakers and action greats, with titles from John Carpenter, Paul Verhoeven, Michael Winner and Neil Marshall all making their Legend debut.

The chaos kicks off on 5th April with Carpenter’s Escape from New York – a dystopian thriller that still bristles with energy more than four decades on. Kurt Russell’s eye-patched anti-hero Snake Plissken remains one of the most iconic figures in genre cinema, and his high-stakes rescue mission across a walled-off Manhattan prison is the perfect way to launch the channel’s month-long celebration of cinematic mayhem.

The channel also brings Michael Winner’s controversial revenge classic Death Wish (18th April) into the spotlight, marking its first appearance on Legend. Charles Bronson...

Emmy Award winner and Golden Globe nominee Kerry Washington joins forces with Lupin star Omar Sy for an all-new action thriller, Shadow Force, which finds a couple – both of whom possess a particular set of skills – going up against their former employer. The action-packed first trailer for Shadow Force has now been unleashed, and finds the pair demonstrating their affinity for gunplay as they fight for not just their lives, but the life of their son.

Led by Kerry Washington and Omar Sy (X-Men: Days of Future Past), Shadow Force “follows the duo who once were the leaders of a multinational special forces group called Shadow Force, who fell foul of the organization after falling in love and leaving the violent world of espionage behind.

Shadow Force is directed by Joe Carnahan, who is also best-known for the likes of Smokin' Aces, Bruce Willis' Death Wish remake, the Frank Grillo-led Boss Level and Copshop,...

Pierre Morel's "Taken" is far from an action classic, but the hook of sex traffickers inadvertently kidnapping the daughter of a ludicrously lethal CIA agent worked well enough to make the film a decent afternoon time-waster, particularly with an actor of Liam Neeson's caliber cast as the pissed-off papa bear. Moviegoers turned out in big numbers and got precisely what they paid to see (judging from the film's A- Cinemascore), so 20th Century Fox ordered up a sequel figuring undemanding action junkies wouldn't mind if Neeson's daughter got kidnapped again. They figured correctly (though this time his ex-wife was kidnapped), and scored an even bigger success. So they went back to the well a third time, and made roughly the same amount of dough without breaking the bank with the budget.

There was no "Taken 4" (if you don't count the one featuring Jimmy Kimmel), which flies in the...

Young people today are accustomed to having cell phones but have no clue about how phones and phone calls used to be. General Hospital’s Kin Shriner, an avid fan of Old Hollywood and how life used to be, recalls the good old days very clearly. The actor, who once helped Dustin Hoffman with a role, often shares his fond memories on social media. He recently got a conversation going about the old days of making telephone calls.

He Wasn’t Phoning It in

Shriner shared a picture of himself at a much younger age, sitting by a desk with a red phone on it on Instagram. Several pictures adorned his wall, and while most were out of focus, a poster for the iconic vigilante movie Death Wish (1974) hung on his wall and could be spotted through the blur, illustrating his love for movies even back when the pic was taken.

Few TV series come with such a prestigious pedigree as “The Sympathizer“. Adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel; co-produced by HBO and top-of-the-line independent film studio A24; co-created, co-produced, co-written and co-directed by Park Chan-wook; also helmed by top Brazilian film director Fernando Meirelles; and co-starring Hollywood mega-star Robert Downey Jr. in no less than five (!) different roles. In fact the miracle is that the show, a miniseries in seven episodes, is never weighed down by the sheer expectations sustaining it. On the contrary, it manages to offer a thrilling, fun and heartbreaking roller-coaster ride into the story of its refugee characters.

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As prestigious as it is, “The Sympathizer” is also a highly unlikely production. After all, none of the main filmmakers or producers involved hails from Vietnam or from the Vietnamese-American community at the heart of the show,...

A divisive action thriller from the director behind aged action hero magnum opus Taken and led by an MCU star is all set to hit free streaming from next month. Released back in 2018, the revenge outing Peppermint saw a huge divide between critics and audiences in their response to this tale, which finds Daredevil and Deadpool & Wolverine’sJennifer Garner as a woman embarking on a violent vendetta of vengeance after her family is killed by a drug cartel.

Directed by Pierre Morel, who oh so successfully helped launch Liam Neeson as Hollywood’s go-to aged action hero in Taken, and written by Chad St. John of London Has Fallen fame, Peppermint stars John Ortiz, John Gallagher Jr., Juan Pablo Raba, and Tyson Ritter alongside Jennifer Garner. Peppermint is due to land on the free streaming platform Tubi on March 1, 2025, and you can check out the official synopsis below.

RelatedTaken Director...

Marvel Studios’ upcoming team-up movie, Thunderbolts*, will now do battle with an action thriller from the director behind the likes of The Grey and The A-Team, Joe Carnahan, as his story of a shady special forces team known as Shadow Force gets a release date. Shadow Force will now land in theaters on the same day as The Thunderbolts, May 2, 2025, meaning audiences will have two action outings to enjoy on the big screen this summer season.

Led by Kerry Washington and Omar Sy (X-Men: Days of Future Past), Shadow Force “follows the duo who once were the leaders of a multinational special forces group called Shadow Force. They broke the rules by falling in love and go underground in order to protect their son. With a large bounty on their heads, and the vengeful Shadow Force hot on their trail, one family’s fight becomes all-out war.”

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For one reason or another, studio vaults are chockfull of movies that have become all but impossible to see nowadays – at least legitimately. We’ve written at length about movies that are surprisingly hard to find, but it’s rare that a mainstream movie exists that never made it to DVD – much less Blu-ray. Such is the case with Columbia’s Night of the Juggler, a well-regarded 1980 thriller starring James Brolin as an ex-nyc cop searching for his daughter, who’s been kidnapped by a psycho (played by future Angel star Cliff Gorman).

A cool, seedy-looking exploitation flick, Night of the Juggler only ever came out on a ratty-old VHS from Media (a low-budget company), with most existing prints of the movie being ripped from sporadic TV showings. Now, our friends at Blu-ray.com have revealed that Kino Lorber is giving the film not only a Blu-ray release but a 4K one to boot.

Stars: Eric Johnson, Martin Kove, Chuck Liddell, Michael Bisping, Ken Shamrock, Matthew Willig, Jim Belushi, Paul Braunstein, Christina Ochoa | Written by James Mark, Matthew Nayman | Directed by James Mark

It’s 1989 and Ryan Taylor is a tough cop with a reality TV show, In the Name of Justice. It’s something like Cops, if it was shot live and starred Harry Callahan. That backfires when the subject of the current episode sees him on TV and is waiting for him with a shotgun. The blast doesn’t seem to kill him however, and he’s transported to 2067 where he can continue his showbiz career, this time as a contestant on Fight Another Day, a real-life version of The Deadliest Warrior, pitting him against fighters from all through history.

It’s sponsored by sponsored by Chronocom Pharmaceuticals, the same company that sponsored In the Name of Justice. The company’s CEO,...

Perhaps more than any other genre, the Western demands a specific, rugged essence from its actors to be believable. For example, character actors such as Ben Johnson, Jack Elam, Chill Willis, and John Ireland possessed a certain aesthetic that allowed them to become part of the iconography of the genre as a whole. However, some Western stars can manage the aesthetics of the genre without the acting chops of character actors.

Cinema's greatest Western stars embody toughness, grit, and self-reliance. They also are able to transcend time, shedding their modern sensibilities and encompassing the spirit of the Old West. Actors such as Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and James Stewart rank among the best Western stars of all time.

This article was updated on February 4, 2025, by Christopher Raley: The Western is one of the greatest genres in cinema. It straddles the line between fantasy and reality, and the Golden Age of...

As strange as it is, moviegoers are fascinated by the assassin. Paid handsomely for their skills of stealth, marksmanship, martial arts, and general wanton violence, these contract killers have been the focus of some of the most thrilling and emotionally provocative films ever made.

Maybe it's because many of these hit-people share many viewers' relationship to their own work -- a disdain for the spiritually emptying but financially necessary professions that command much of their life. Maybe it's because a criminal mastermind of this nature -- so devoid of humanity that they reduce human lives to zeros in a bank account -- reveals more about the world around them than any other character type.

Or maybe it's because we just like watching people fight with guns and swords. In any case, we've put together our own hit-list of flicks featuring them, ranked based on their quality, legacy, and depiction of these captivating killers.

I'm not the biggest fan of Joker, or of movies like it. When separated from its ties to DC Comics' Clown Prince of Crime, Joker is just the nth movie about a self-involved man who thinks society wronged him, and so the world and everyone in it should burn. Despite its begrudging connections to one of the most overrated and overused comic book supervillains of all time, Joker is just another Taxi Driver knock-off. If you've seen one movie about a self-righteous and misanthropic man waging war against society, you've seen them all. Joker's air of self-importance — best embodied by writer/director Todd Phillips calling it a "real movie" in the guise of a comic book movie — only made it all the more tiresome.

This is why, to my surprise, Joker: Folie à deux apparently shared my disdain for Joker. This wasn't only because the movie was so far removed...

Movies of the 1970s were filled with malaise, paranoia, and most prevailing of all, revenge. Thrillers about a one-person army seeking retribution for wrongdoings became a genre of its own, from popcorn fare like Death Wish to poignant artful statements like Taxi Driver. It didn't matter what character archetype it was — a cop, an outlaw, a veteran, or an everyday individual — characters of the '70s were fueled by the angst and dread of a post-Watergate and Vietnam America to exact vengeance. It was a dual-wielding genre — one that could entertain the masses and comment on a societal topic at a macro level with distinct clarity. One of the most richly crafted and thoughtful revenge thrillers of the decade, Rolling Thunder, is an all-time favorite of Quentin Tarantino, who rightfully can't stop obsessing over it.

The explosive ending of Law Abiding Citizen explained how Clyde was stopped from causing more problems, but it was also confusing for many viewers. The revenge movie genre rose sharply in popularity following the success of 1974's Death Wish, and has continued all these years later. 2009's Law Abiding Citizen is one of the more intriguing vigilante efforts and stars Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx. The movie centers on Butler's Clyde, who saw his wife and daughter being murdered in front of him, but after the system lets their killer off lightly, he swears epic revenge.

Law Abiding Citizen poses interesting questions about the justice system and toys with audience sympathies. Given all he's suffered, it's hard not to root for Butler's character, but he gradually becomes so monstrous that viewers later side with Foxx's Rice instead. That said, Rice decided to be lenient with the killer of Clyde's family,...

Jeff Goldblum has certainly been regarded as a legend in the world of Hollywood. Having starred in several iconic films over the years, ranging from his presence in the Jurrasic Park franchise to the recently released Wicked film, there is no denying that he has become an important part of popular culture.

Jeff Goldblum in Kaos (2024) | Credit: Netflix

So much so that he has had a career that has spanned five decades. One can imagine that this led to a lot of lessons, be it learning them or teaching them. Recently, the actor gave an interview where he talked about a very big lesson he learned when he was working on his very first film.

The No Showering Kind of Job

Method acting is one of the most famous and well-known forms of acting in the film industry. It has gained quite a reputation through the years, becoming well-known for its ruthlessness and demanding nature.

This article contains mention of sexual assault.

Clint Eastwood's dark Dirty Harry sequel Sudden Impact is really a gender-flipped remake of a controversial 1974 hit. Dirty Harry is one of the rare Clint Eastwood movie franchises, but after the third entry in 1976, the star seemed done with the character. It was only when a Warner Bros poll revealed audiences wanted Harry back that Clint returned for another sequel. This saw Harry on the case of a serial killer who shoots victims in both the groin and forehead, and while Sudden Impact is famous for Harry's "Make my day" catchphrase, it's perhaps the bleakest of the series.

Harry eventually discovers the killer is artist Jennifer Spencer (Sondra Locke), who is tracking down and murdering the gang who assaulted her and her sister years before. While the Death Wish movies and Taxi Driver covered similar themes, Sudden Impact sets itself apart by...

Screenwriter Derek Kolstad wrote around 50 scripts before he finally broke through with the spec screenplay that became John Wick.

It’s an odd profession, screenwriting. There are some who’ve spent years trying to break into it, only to have their work changed to such a degree that their original idea has effectively vanished by the time it reaches the screen. There are others who get paid handsomely by studios to write screenplays that then wind up on a shelf, unused. For every celebrated screenwriter with millions in the bank and awards on their shelves, there are countless others who are behind on their rent and remain largely unknown.

Screenwriter Derek Kolstad, meanwhile, is something of an inspiration. He toiled away for years in the hope of making a career out of writing, and almost gave up when some of the low-budget movies he worked on didn’t bring in much of a salary.