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Angelina Jolie is one of the most celebrated actors of her generation, and one of Hollywood's most notable humanitarians. She's done vitally important work on behalf of refugees for the United Nations, and has also taken up for women's rights in the third world. She's an extraordinary person, but it all started with acting -- and overcoming the potential stigma of being what the kids nowadays call a "nepo-baby."

Yes, Angelina Jolie is the daughter of actors Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand. Her father was a pivotal actor in the New Hollywood movement of the 1960s and '70s, starring in such trailblazing films as "Midnight Cowboy," "Deliverance," and "Coming Home" (for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor). Jolie got her first film role alongside her father in Hal Ashby's ill-fated comedy "Lookin' to Get Out" in 1982, but didn't return to movies until 1993 as the lead...

There was no one more surprised by Jeremy Strong‘s Golden Globe nomination for “The Apprentice” than Jeremy Strong.

“I am just indescribably moved by today’s news and surprised by it as well,” he tells Gold Derby after Monday’s nomination announcement. “I, to be honest with you, had been kind of just bracing myself to not be included in these things because of the way the film has sort of been received or not received, I should say. Not embraced.”

Strong is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as Roy Cohn, who mentors a young about a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan) in the Ali Abbasi drama. “The Apprentice” has been a lightning rod since it was first announced a year ago and struggled to find distribution after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Trump and his legal team also attempted to block...

Legendary film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were known for their passionate discussions about movies, whether they were raving about arthouse offerings like My Dinner with Andre or fiercely debating the artistic merits of Home Alone 3.

But what about TV?

Well, apart from that time that they reviewed an episode of Saturday Night Live during the episode, the famous duo didn’t really discuss TV shows. But that all changed thanks to one very special animated series: The Critic. Al Jean and Mike Reiss’ underrated primetime cartoon chronicled the life of a portly New York film critic and TV host Jay Sherman (voiced by Jon Lovitz) who routinely trashed Hollywood blockbusters such as Scent of a Wolfman and Dennis the Menace II Society.

So, naturally, Siskel and Ebert took note of The Critic. They then took the highly unusual step of reviewing it on a 1994 episode of their show,...

The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film in the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery above features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

The worst among 96 Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film on the bottom of the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery below features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

What if Francis Ford Coppola made a new movie and no one showed up? It happened once before in 1982 with the backlot musical "One from the Heart," and, lamentably, it happened again this year with the maestro's "Megalopolis," which will become available on digital starting November 12, 2024.

A self-funded, $100 million-plus epic vision of an alternate American reality, "Megalopolis" has grossed just under $14 million globally in theaters at the time of writing. True, its reviews were as dismal as those for "One from the Heart," but knowing that the latter went on to be reassessed as a misunderstood triumph should've at least encouraged critics to stay thy blades for fear of looking like a pack of Bosley Crowthers 20 or so years from now.

As a full-throated admirer of "One from the Heart," I've tried not to come down too hard on "Megalopolis," even though I feel fairly certain the film, short of a narrative-clarifying director's cut,...

Luca Guadagnino and Lionsgate announced that the “Call Me by Your Name” and “Queer” director is in final discussions to film a new version of Bret Eason Ellis’ dark horror novel “American Psycho,” nearly 25 years after the same company released Mary Harron’s satirical adaptation. In a key role that elevated his career, the 2000 film starred Christian Bale as yuppie investment banker-turned-serial killer Patrick Bateman.

It’s the kind of announcement destined to raise eyebrows. Guadagnino is in a career sweet spot after “Challengers” and “Queer” this year (and “After the Hunt” in post); he already has many projects in the works, including “Separate Rooms” with Josh O’Connor and a Thomas Mann adaptation in early development. So why is he choosing a remake — and for a film that doesn’t seem that long ago?

New versions of older films are not unusual. Even the word “remake” is tricky here — does that apply with adaptations?...

It’s the world’s oldest profession, but it’s also the world’s most stigmatized profession. Sex work, be it prostitution or erotic dancing or pornographic acting, is a reality of the world, an umbrella of occupations that have never gone away or been snuffed out no matter what laws or restrictions society has tried to impose against it. Far from it: as the world has lurched forward into the online era, sex work has fully gone online, with subscription platforms and websites allowing for new ways for those in the field to make their bucks.

While people who do sex work come in all shapes and sizes, on film, sex workers tend to be painted with a reductive, dehumanizing lens. Often, they’re not really characters at all, but window-dressing in crime movies or — most appallingly — dead bodies in films about killers that don’t particularly provide them with much backstory.

“The Apprentice,” director Ali Abbasi‘s story of Donald Trump’s rise in the New York real estate world under the tutelage of Machiavellian attorney Roy Cohn, has a visual style that recalls New Hollywood classics like “Midnight Cowboy” and “Taxi Driver.” But as the film becomes more and more about moral disintegration, “The Apprentice” also brings to mind junky broadcast video of the 1980s. Yet for Abbasi, the key reference point was a film with surfaces quite different from those of the gritty, punk rock “Apprentice”: Stanley Kubrick’s stately, elegant 18th-century period piece “Barry Lyndon.”

While the thuggish, urban Trump and Cohn may seem far removed from the genteel European aristocrats of Kubrick’s film, Abbasi said he and screenwriter Gabriel Sherman found many similarities between Trump and the social climber played by Ryan O’Neal.

“There were some really interesting parallels,” Abbasi told IndieWire. “There’s something...

I’m 80 years old and this is my 60th year in the entertainment business. It’s hard to believe even as I write it. Most of my career was in public relations, working with the biggest stars of the day. There were too many secrets in Hollywood back then, but I sometimes miss the mystery of icons like Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Ali MacGraw, Diahann Carroll, Charlton Heston and so many others. They spoke to the audience mainly through their work and carefully controlled press to promote their latest film. That mystery allowed me to pull off one of my most unusual achievements for a client when I accompanied actress and photojournalist Gina Lollobrigida to Cuba in 1974 for an exclusive photo essay and interview with Fidel Castro. As I watched Castro playing 5 on 5 basketball in an empty arena, I asked myself how a girl from a small town in Virginia ended up here.

Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, Stevie Nicks delivers a powerful women’s rights anthem, Lady Gaga drops a surprise jazz album, and Rauw Alejandro rolls through with some heart-tugging slickness. Plus, Mickey Guyton, Billy Strings, Sunflower Bean, and the return of the Cure.

Stevie Nicks, “The Lighthouse” (YouTube)

Sunflower Bean, “Serial Killer” (YouTube)

Mickey Guyton, “House On Fire” (YouTube)

The Cure, “Alone” (YouTube)

Lady Gaga, ‘Happy Mistake” (YouTube)

Saweetie, “Is It the Way” (YouTube)

Weeknd feat.

Jade is moving her solo project forward with another banger!

The 31-year-old Little Mix member and “Angel of My Dreams” solo superstar followed up her debut single with a new track called “Midnight Cowboy,” out on Wednesday (September 25).

The track also features a spoken word cameo from superstar actor Ncuti Gatwa.

Keep reading to find out more…

“I promised the fans wouldn’t have to wait too long for more music…so I think it’s ‘bout time for the ‘Midnight Cowboy,’” she said.

“Written in 2022 by Raye and I, produced by Jonah Christian and featuring a guest moment from the one and only Ncuti Gatwa – ‘Midnight Cowboy’ is a sultry, understated bass heavy bop about owning your sexuality and your talents that come with it.”

Jade‘s solo debut “Angel of My Dreams” launched at No.7 on the UK Singles Chart, the third highest new entry for a British artist this year.

Jade Thirlwall’s life outside of Little Mix is still taking shape. Earlier this year, the singer and songwriter shared her debut solo single “Angel of My Dreams,” a theatric commentary on pop stardom and the music industry machine. Her latest release, the dizzying club track “Midnight Cowboy,” creates a musical bridge as she continues building on the world she established with her first single.

“I didn’t want you all to have to wait so long for music again,” Jade wrote on social media yesterday, describing the new release...

Ron Howard's acting career was part of a family legacy, as his father, Rance, was already a prolific performer when he was born in 1954. Howard's first professional acting credit is for the 1959 feature "The Journey," with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr. That same year, the five-year-old Ron infiltrated TV, appearing as precocious moppets in multiple hot shows.

More notably, beginning in 1960, Ron -- credited as Ronny -- began starring on "The Andy Griffith Show," playing Opie, the son of Griffith's character. Howard would appear in 243 of the show's 249 episodes, over the course of eight seasons. While appearing on "Andy Griffith," Howard would continue to be a TV presence, appearing in dozens of additional hot shows, as well as several notable B-pictures.

Even in his teen years, Howard continued to act, proving that he was no mere child prodigy. He appeared in George Lucas' nostalgia film "American Graffiti," and...

Through the Critics Choice Association I was presented the opportunity to attend a live press conference for DC’s The Penguin, streaming this week on Max. The series follows Oz Cobb, portrayed by Colin Farrell reprising the role he’d played in Matt Reeves’ The Batman.

Matt Reeves was not in attendance for the press conference, but he sent a video message to kick things off. In that message he detailed how the idea of The Penguin series came to be.

“… the idea of not only doing films, but maybe doing an HBO-style show that could not be focused on Batman, but instead be focused on one of those Rogues Gallery

characters and see them coming into being, see their origins, and do it

with an HBO treatment.” – Matt Reeves

The series was pitched as a “Scarface-like” story set in the aftermath of Carmine Falcone’s death and showcasing Oz...

Looks like cinephiles will need to make a little more space on their shelves. As has become customary, The Criterion Collection announced its four upcoming December releases today, and you may just need to make room for all of them on your holiday shopping lists. First up, set to be available on December 3, the new 4K restoration of Wim Wenders’ Palme d’Or-winning masterpiece “Paris, Texas,” starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, and Nastassja Kinski.

In his 1984 review of the reflective western drama, film critic Roger Ebert wrote, “‘Paris, Texas’ is a movie with the kind of passion and willingness to experiment that was more common fifteen years ago than it is now. It has more links with films like ‘Five Easy Pieces’ and ‘Easy Rider’ and ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ than with the slick arcade games that are the box-office winners of the 1980s. It is true, deep, and brilliant.”

On...

A balancing act that seems to enjoy feeling as if it’s about to lose its balance, “The Friend” is a lot of different things at once. It’s a dog-and-human bonding movie, which means it’s unavoidably sentimental. It’s a Bill Murray movie, which means it’s funny in a snarky way, but it’s also a character drama in which Murray is an unseen presence most of the time. It’s a movie about grief and a movie about creativity.

And mostly, the new film from writer-directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee is all of those things at once, sliding between tones, defaulting to lightness most of the time but always ready to veer in another direction.

The film, which premiered on Friday at the Telluride Film Festival, is full of feints: a little bit of comedy, a hefty helping of loss, a touch of melodrama and a whole lot of dog,...

Before his death, French actor Alain Delon had said that he wished for his dog, Loubo, to be put down when he passed. Delon believed the bond between him and his rescued Belgian Malinois was so strong that the dog would miss him dearly when he died and preferred to spare his pet such pain.

How does one explain death to a dog? That question, and several others deeper than we might expect from a “dog movie,” give intellectual heft to “The Friend,” a gentle coping-with-grief drama that provides its audience with a 180-pound emotional support animal in the form of Apollo, a harlequin Great Dane who’s missing his master and headed for the proverbial glue factory unless a bighearted enough human agrees to adopt him. Naomi Watts plays that human in a by-the-numbers crowd-pleaser with a bit more on its mind than your typical canine-centric tearjerker.

It’s...

John Turturro with his Heart of Sarajevo award Photo: Courtesy of Sarajevo Film Festival John Turturro received a Heart of Sarajevo award at the Sarajevo Film Festival last night for his career.

The actor, known for films including Barton Fink and Quiz Show, took part in a conversation event at the festival yesterday to talk about his work in front of and behind the camera.

He partially credits his love of film to his parents who were big film lovers. He also says that as they didn’t travel around much as a family films were “emotional transportation for me”.

He said his big inspiration was when he saw a clip of Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy when he was about aged 12.

He recalls: “I couldn’t see it because it was rated X at the time.”

He adds: “I was shocked because I was thinking, well, that guy looks like someone in our family.

In the midst of their press tour for Zoë Kravitz’s feature directorial debut, “Blink Twice,” starring romantic partner Channing Tatum, the duo took a not-so-brief pit-stop at the Criterion Closet to score a bevy of cinematic treats. Many of their choices outlined their shared eclectic taste and emphasized a relationship largely based around a love for films of all kind.

“We’re so excited to be here, this is like a dream come true,” Kravitz said as she and Tatum began their shopping spree. “I grew up in video stores, so this is also just a nice feeling cause that’s not really a thing anymore, sadly.”

Though the video was shot prior to the death of Gena Rowlands and posted on the day the news broke, there’s a serendipitous homage to the late actor, as well her husband and collaborator John Cassavetes.

“We love Cassavetes,” Kravitz said...

To a Land Unknown.When Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown (2024) premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight, its rapturous reception was a rare moment of solidarity in a festival environment that otherwise sought apoliticality. The only Palestinian film to be selected across all sections of the Cannes Film Festival, To a Land Unknown offered a vital link to an ongoing, real-world crisis, breaking the bubble of the festival landscape. Palestinian flags soared inside the theater at the film’s debut screening, while down the Croisette at the Théâtre Debussy, several journalists were asked to remove pin badges expressing their political commitments, some to the Palestinian cause and others to the labor activity of the festival workers. What use can a festival have in a time of genocide if it neither acknowledges political struggle nor centers stories by and about oppressed peoples? The story of two refugees, Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and...

Even at the age of 49, Angelina Jolie is easily one of the most stunning and remarkable actresses in all of Hollywood’s entertainment industry. A diva who effortlessly managed to land a majority of star-studded roles throughout her three-decades-plus-old regime as an actor, she has led an incredibly successful and commendable career as well.

Angelina Jolie in Wanted. | Universal Pictures.

And yet, when it goes back to the early beginnings, no one would have thought the beauty would have gone on to become the female James Bond of Hollywood. This stands especially true after looking at a flashback clip of Jolie from 1986, when she walked the red carpet of that year’s Oscars with her family as a 10-year-old beauty.

Angelina Jolie’s Flashback Clip Shows Her Walking the Red Carpet at 10

Angelina Jolie may ostensibly be one of the most famously confident and outspoken actresses in today’s day and age,...

Jon Voight keeps moving. The 85-year-old actor is shadowboxing, his footwork nimble for a man of any age, let alone someone older than even Joe Biden and Voight’s friend Donald Trump.

He pauses and arches an eyebrow and becomes a matinee villain. “You think you’re tough. I’ll show you tough.”

Today, we’re outside his Beverly Hills home. There’s a pool and a driveway where Voight designed the pavement that features tiny ducklings, rabbits, monkeys and a dragon etched into the cement. Near the entrance are the words “Wots Modder Wot You Jonny,” in honor of his Czech grandfather who never quite mastered English.

I’ve talked with Voight many times over the past year, and he is always engaging. But the presence of a photographer has kicked him into a high gear. He picks up a plastic rabbit in his yard and speaks to it,...

Hollywood has never been one to shy away from making political statements, whether they’re roasting Donald Trump on what used to be called Twitter or proudly waving the blue flag. After the latest presidential debate, here’s a breakdown, five actors who’ve got Trump’s back and five who are definitely not feeling it.

Donald Trump’s cameo in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York | Fox Family Entertainment

Despite some ups and downs in Joe Biden’s public perception, he’s garnered a top-tier lineup of celebrity endorsements in recent years. Celebrities like Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Leonardo DiCaprio, and even Taylor Swift, to name a few have backed him.

In contrast, Donald Trump, despite his history in Hollywood, has never managed to attract such significant star support. His endorsements largely come from the C- and D-list public figures.

5 Actors Who Are All-In for Donald Trump Roseanne Barr...

Trailers make “Fly Me to the Moon” look cute at best, when in fact it’s quite clever: a smarter-than-it-sounds, space-age sparring match of the Rock Hudson/Doris Day variety, in which the honest-to-a-fault NASA launch director responsible for sending Apollo 11 into orbit (a straight-faced Channing Tatum) goes head-to-head with a mendacious Madison Avenue spin doctor. Set during the first half of 1969, director Greg Berlanti’s high-concept screwball comedy values chemistry over history, bending the facts to suggest a fresh set of stakes for the operation, where romance fuels a rocket to the moon.

For decades, questions have dogged the Apollo 11 project. Who really won the space race? Did NASA fake the moon landing? Story credit goes to Keenan Flynn and Bill Kirstein, as screenwriter Rose Gilroy takes these doubts and extrapolates them into what the film itself might call an “alternative version” of events — one that puts authenticity itself on the line.

Dustin Hoffman’s journey to stardom is no less than a testament to resilience and an unwavering dedication to his craft. Starting his career on Broadway, Hoffman found fame and acclaim despite his ‘unconventional’ looks. Breaking barriers with his extraordinary performances, the actor’s initial run is often regarded as an era of nuanced and deeply human storytelling, even when most of his roles can be categorized as ‘anti-heroes’.

Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate | Embassy Pictures

However, at the top of his game, Hoffman made the surprising decision to reject the legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg four times. While Spielberg isn’t the only director he refused, the actor now deeply regrets making those mistakes.

Dustin Hoffman Jeopardized His Career by Rejecting Steven Spielberg Four Times!

Hoffman in a still from Hook | TriStar Pictures

Dustin Hoffman was just a star on Broadway when he ended up getting his breakthrough role in the 1967 movie,...

Actor Jon Voight recounted his experience in the iconic film Midnight Cowboy in his new uInterview.

Voight felt the role had the most impact on his career. “Midnight Cowboy, of course, was huge. It made me; it gave me a career,” he told uInterview founder Erik Meers. “All of a sudden, I was a bankable something.”

Asked if he knew at the time of filming how controversial the movie would be, Voight said, “Oh yeah, I mean, I knew there’s nothing else like it – but I liked what it was; I fell in love with the story from the book, I thought this character and also Rizzo, were like a classic couple of personalities, that you would go through any adventure with these two characters, these knuckleheads, but these lovely knuckleheads we all understand somehow and root for.”

He continued, “So that’s what I knew about that piece.

How now, what news: the Criterion Channel’s July lineup is here. Eight pop renditions of Shakespeare are on the docket: from movies you forgot were inspired by the Bard (Abel Ferrara’s China Girl) to ones you’d wish to forget altogether (Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing), with maybe my single favorite interpretation (Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet) alongside Paul Mazursky, Gus Van Sant, Baz Luhrmann, Derek Jarman, and (of course) Kenneth Branagh. A neonoir collection arrives four months ahead of Noirvember: two Ellroy adaptations, two from De Palma that are not his neonoir Ellroy adaptation, two from the Coen brothers (i.e. the chance to see a DVD-stranded The Man Who Wasn’t There in HD), and––finally––a Michael Winner picture given Criterion’s seal of approval.

Columbia screwballs run between classics to lesser-seens while Nicolas Roeg and Heisei-era Godzilla face off. A Times Square collection brings The Gods of Times Square,...

John Wayne, who died of cancer in 1979, wasn't really known for his gentleness or commitment to open-minded, multicultural thinking. Every few years, the internet rediscovers Wayne's infamously racist, misogynist 1971 Playboy Magazine interview, and are offended afresh. He used the three-letter F-word to describe the characters in "Midnight Cowboy," calling it "perverted," before actually saying out loud  "I believe in white supremacy." He also ranted about how in the heyday of his career, there were more white people in movies. 

This interview didn't really expose anything the public didn't already know about Wayne, a man who used antisemitic slurs when talking to Richard Nixon, and who allegedly tried to storm the stage at the 1973 Academy Awards to interrupt Sacheen Littlefeather's speech about how Westerns hurt the public's perception of Native Americans. One can only imagine what Wayne would have thought of Haysi Fantayzee's bawdy 1982 single "John Wayne is Big Leggy.

By the time we meet them, Chatila and Reda already are down in the lower depths. Cousins from Palestine, they have spent much of their lives living as refugees on the run. Having made it as far as Athens, a kind of holding zone for people from the Middle East trying to slip into Europe, they are trying to scrape together money to get to Germany.

Ferrety Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) is masterminding the cousins’ next fundraising operation in one of Athens’s pleasantly proletarian parks, directing his sweet-faced cousin Reda (Aram Sabbah) to fall over on his skateboard in front of a middle-aged woman who almost certainly will help him. Chatila’s job is to snatch her handbag and run. It’s mean, it’s shabby, and it’s miserably cheap. Their mark’s purse contains 5 euros, the price of a couple of coffees. They won’t be able to...

The story behind the making of Palestinian-Danish director Mahdi Fleifel’s second feature, To a Land Unknown, is probably as intriguing as the film itself. Shot on the fly in Greece, with production beginning exactly a month after the Hamas attacks of October 7th, the movie was somehow completed in time to premiere at Cannes just over six months later.

That may be something of a record in terms of delivering a feature, but it also speaks to the precarious and volatile situation the film is depicting: that of Palestinian refugees stuck in Athens en route to someplace else, caught in a purgatory between a home they can’t return to and a new one they don’t know.

For best friends Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), the heroes of Fleifel’s melancholic, shaggy-dog street movie, that purgatory has been going on for some time. When we first see the two 20somethings,...

The brilliant Palestinian-Danish documentarian Mahdi Fleifel (“A World Not Ours”) leaps successfully into fiction with a feature debut that borrows a narrative container from “Midnight Cowboy” and a tormented soul that is all Palestinian.

The film opens with a quote from the celebrated Palestinian scholar, Edward Said: “In a way, it’s a sort of fate of Palestinians not to end up where they started, but somewhere unexpected and far away.” These words have been cutting since the moment they were first spoken years ago, but released into the world now during the horrific genocide in Gaza, they have an extra, desperate bite, as another generation is forced to seek displacement as the only alternative to violent death. Premiering at Cannes in this climate, Fleifel’s portrait of two individual characters asks questions that cannot be confined to the screen. Where do you belong after you have been driven from your homeland?...

Don’t be confused about the title The Apprentice. This is not a movie version of the NBC reality TV series in any way, but instead a smart, sharp and surprising origin story of the man who hosted it. In this case the actual “apprentice” is Donald Trump, infamous real estate developer, former President of the United States and current presumed GOP nominee for 2024.

But the political Trump is not in Iranian-Danish director Ali Abbasi’s compelling film, which instead zeroes in on a specific period of Trump’s life in the early ’70s when he was in his 20s and struggling to make a name for himself in the world of real estate in New York City. But it isn’t just about him — it is equally focused on his unique relationship with his lawyer, the notorious Roy Cohn, often referred to as vicious, cruel, ruthless and sadistic, a...

Directors’ Fortnight is always a chance to catch films at the Cannes Film Festival off the main drag of the Croisette, out of the main competition, and with an eye toward boundary-breaking works. Mahdi Fleifel’s Directors’ Fortnight world premiere “To a Land Unknown” is the only Palestinian feature to screen at the festival, and IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer below.

The film follows Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), cousins and refugees stranded in Athens and trying to reach Germany. To escape Greece, they hatch a plan to pose as smugglers taking hostages, with dire consequences for their friendship. “It’s especially moving to me, in these incredible times, to present a Palestinian film at Cannes. As Palestinians, we challenge media stereotypes, but more importantly, we defy invisibility, a struggle we’ve faced since the beginning. Our stories are needed now more than ever,” Fleifel, born in Dubai...

Note: This article discusses sexual misconduct and abuse.

As much as I roll my eyes at Joe Russo blaming Marvel's pandemic-era box office woes on the children, he's right about one thing: Hollywood, like the world at large, is at a crossroads at the time of this writing. Superhero films, which have been the bread and butter of the industry for most of the 21st century, are no longer a reliable draw. We also find ourselves in a curious place where franchise fatigue seems to be settling in, yet it remains challenging for anything that isn't based on an IP to find financial success. At the same time, the growing popularity of smaller and scrappier fare from studios like A24 could point to a way forward.

It's a lot like the 1960s, when you think about it. By the end of that decade, the American New Wave was in full swing.

As the Cannes Film Festival celebrates its parties and standing ovations, audiences in Hollywood and New York prepare to wallow in despair. And they’ll enjoy it (almost).

The festival called Bleak Week this week will deliver 43 films to an expected audience of 10,000 at theaters including the restored Egyptian in Hollywood, the Aero in Santa Monica and the Paris in New York.

Created by the American Cinematheque, Bleak Week will feature celebrities and Q&a sessions explaining why their projects deal with existential dread, nihilism and “uncomfortable truths,” as Bleak Week creative director Grant Moninger puts it.

Not surprisingly, there surely also will be post-screening alcoholic consumption for filmgoers seeking to ease the pain.

As the Cinematheque details it, Bleak Week was not prompted by Gaza, student protests, geomagnetic storms or the possible loss of yet another studio (Paramount).

Rather, its announced purpose is to honor an important if long-ignored...

As the 77th Cannes Film Festival gets underway, there are plenty of obvious frontrunners for the coveted Palme d’Or. But don’t count out Ali Abbasi‘s “The Apprentice” as a dark horse pick to win the festival’s top prize. The latest film from the “Holy Spider” director (a film that won Best Actress at the 2022 fest) is quite the pivot for the Iranian-Danish filmmaker: a ’70s-set period piece about the professional relationship between a young Donald Trump and NYC lawyer Roy Cohn.

Continue reading ‘The Apprentice’: Jeremy Strong Compares Ali Abbasi’s Film To ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ Describes His Roy Cohn As “A Heart-Of-Darkness Heart Donor” at The Playlist.

Adam Driver protagoniza el proyecto más personal de Coppola.

Se ha publicado el primer tráiler de la esperadísima película “Megalopolis”, escrita, dirigida y producida por Francis Ford Coppola (“El Padrino”).

“Megalopolis” es una fábula épica romana ambientada en una imaginada América moderna. La ciudad de Nueva Roma debe cambiar, lo que provoca un conflicto entre César Catilina, un artista genial que pretende dar el salto a un futuro utópico e idealista, y su oponente, el alcalde Franklyn Cicero, que sigue comprometido con un statu quo regresivo, perpetuando la codicia, los intereses particulares y la guerra partidista. En medio de ambos se encuentra Julia Cicero, la hija del alcalde, cuyo amor por César ha dividido sus lealtades, obligándola a descubrir lo que realmente cree que merece la humanidad.

La película cuenta con un reparto coral que incluye Adam Driver (“Historia de un Matrimonio”), Forest Whitaker (“El Último Rey de Escocia”), Nathalie Emmanuel...

Adam Driver protagoniza la película que tendrá su estreno mundial en Cannes.

Ya tenemos el primer avance de la esperadísima película “Megalopolis”, escrita, dirigida y producida por Francis Ford Coppola (“El Padrino”).

“Megalopolis” es una fábula épica romana ambientada en una imaginada América moderna. La ciudad de Nueva Roma debe cambiar, lo que provoca un conflicto entre César Catilina, un artista genial que pretende dar el salto a un futuro utópico e idealista, y su oponente, el alcalde Franklyn Cicero, que sigue comprometido con un statu quo regresivo, perpetuando la codicia, los intereses particulares y la guerra partidista. En medio de ambos se encuentra Julia Cicero, la hija del alcalde, cuyo amor por César ha dividido sus lealtades, obligándola a descubrir lo que realmente cree que merece la humanidad.

La película cuenta con un reparto coral que incluye Adam Driver (“Historia de un Matrimonio”), Forest Whitaker (“El Último Rey de Escocia...

The original 1964 Broadway production of "Hello, Dolly!" was considered a showcase for its star, Carol Channing, and little else. At the time, critics were not entirely kind, saying the show had "unnecessary vulgar and frenzied touches," and that they "wouldn't say that Jerry Herman's score is memorable." Despite the middling reviews, "Hello, Dolly!" won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Leading Actress (for Channing), Best Direction, Best Choreography, and Best Original Score.

The mid-'60s were a weirdly fraught time for major Hollywood musicals, as the genre provided some of the era's biggest hits, but also some of its biggest bombs. In 1964, Disney had a big hit with "Mary Poppins" and Warner Bros. made bank with "My Fair Lady," so musicals were suddenly on the rise. In 1965, Fox released "The Sound of Music," adapted from the stage production by Rodgers and Hammerstein, and it proved to be one of...

In his latest podcast/interview, host and screenwriter Stuart Wright talks to John Maxwell about his debut novel Water Street and “3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life,” which includes:

Midnight Cowboy (1969) The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (1966) The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp (1943)

“3 Films That Have Impacted Everything In Your Adult Life” is about those films that made you fall in love with film. The guest selects their trio of movies and we talk for 5 minutes, against the clock. When the alarm goes off for five minutes we move on to the next film.

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One of cinema's most prolific and cherished character actors has died just short of his 89th birthday. M. Emmet Walsh, memorable in so many films including Blade Runner, Blood Simple and more recently, Knives Out, was 88 when he died on Tuesday.

Born in 1935 in Ogdensburg, New York, Walsh was raised in Vermont. He kicked off his acting career in typical fashion, with guest roles in TV series in the 1960s and 70s, but unlike some of his peers, he continued to juggle big and small screen gigs throughout his life. He had a personal credo about the work: "I approach each job thinking it might be my last, so it better be the best work possible. I want to be remembered as a working actor. I’m being paid for what I’d do for nothing."

Cinematically, he got his start via uncredited roles in the likes of Midnight Cowboy,...

M. Emmet Walsh is dead at the age of 88, his manager Sandy Joseph told IndieWire. The grizzled character actor appeared in Hollywood movies across 55 years and was one of the most recognizable “oh yeah, that guy!” performers in the industry. Even just by saying “grizzled character actor” you probably pictured him, even if you didn’t know his name.

Walsh had bit parts in “Midnight Cowboy,” “Little Big Man,” “Serpico,” “What’s Up, Doc?” and “The Gambler” at the start of his career. But it’s two films from the early 1980s that put him on the map and truly lodged him in the consciousness of cinephiles: “Blade Runner” and “Blood Simple.” In Ridley Scott’s film he played Capt. Bryant, who sends Harrison Ford’s Decker on his quest to terminate the escaped, murderous replicants. Or “retire” them, rather. That’s the kind of euphemism Walsh, in his rumpled way,...

Very sad news today as it’s been reported that M. Emmet Walsh has died at the age of 88. No matter the size of the role, the prolific character actor always made a unique impression throughout his long career, which spanned six decades.

M. Emmet Walsh is best known for playing Bryant in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the captain of the Los Angeles Police Department who tasks Deckard with tracking down the replicants at the beginning of the film. He told THR that the cast and crew weren’t quite sure what the make of the movie when they first saw it. “I don’t know if I really understood what in the hell it was all about,” Walsh said. “We all sat there and it ended. And nothing. We didn’t know what to say or to think or do! We didn’t know what in the hell we had done!

It’s Cape Fear meets ‘The Burbs in director John Schlesinger’s Pacific Heights. Although you might be fooled by Hanz Zimmer’s score, which sounds a lot more like you’re watching Sexy Beetlejuice than a ’90s thriller. This is pure irony, of course, considering the film stars Beetlejuice himself, Michael Keaton, as a conman who is six feet from the edge and thinking maybe doing murder isn’t so far down.

For those of you arguing silently in your heads that Pacific Heights is not a horror movie, let me go ahead and agree with you. It’s a pure thriller. But imagine this for a moment; imagine somewhere out there is a fresh-off Batman Michael Keaton, sitting in a dark room twirling both a razor blade and a large cockroach through his fingers like some sort of emo fidget spinner, plotting you and your significant other’s demise.

In one of Charles Addams' original Addams Family comic strips for the New Yorker, we see Gomez, the family patriarch, perched by a large window in his sepulchral home, looking out the window. His children and wife are standing near him. Outside the window, an apocalyptic storm is raging. A tree has been stripped of its leaves and a home across the street appears to be blowing over. "Just the kind of day that makes you feel good to be alive!" Gomez comments.

Barry Sonnenfeld's 1991 film version of "The Addams Family" captures that outsider spirit. This iteration of the Addams Family values the gloom that most people eschew, presenting Gomez (Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Houston) as horny, enthused monsters who you kind of fall in love with.

The plot of the movie is somewhat plain: a scheming a-hole finds someone who looks exactly like the long-lost Fester Addams...

“That movie was the President’s idea, not mine, but it was a demand, not a suggestion.”

The speaker was Jack Warner in a 1947 foreshadowing of his Donald Trumpian style. I recalled his remarks this week as I drove onto the Warner Bros lot, the fabled arena where Warner long reigned.

In his heyday, Warner was a Trump pre-clone in terms of temperament and rhetoric – a man who boasted about his mental acuity yet, to Hollywood’s power players, seemed occasionally unhinged.

I was visiting Warner Bros this week to spend some time with David Zaslav, a figure who, in temperament and politics, is the mirror opposite of Warner but whose empire is nonetheless a product of Warner’s erratic vision. Some believe that Zaslav’s studio – Hollywood in general – might still glean some insight from its founder’s idiosyncrasies.

A career maverick, Warner promoted gangster movies like Public Enemy...

1

Maestro opens with an extravagant shot that starts on a young Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) as he’s awakened with the news of his big break, filling in for the conductor of the New York Philharmonic. What thunderous score do we hear as L.B. rips open the curtains, grabs his robe, runs down the hall and, magically, steps into a balcony box inside Carnegie Hall?

A. “Symphonic Suite” from On the Waterfront

B. “Prologue” from West Side Story

C. “I Get Carried Away” from On the Town

D. “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys

↓ Jump to Answer

2

Filmmaker Takashi Yamazaki, who brought back Japan’s famous monster franchise with Godzilla Minus One, is the first director to be nominated for a visual effects award.

A. True

B. False

↓ Jump to Answer

3

We may never know if Sandra Hüller’s character in Anatomy of a Fall killed...

Martin Scorsese was at the Berlinale this week for the first time in a decade. His presence to collect an honorary Golden Bear was a reminder of the festival’s glories of yesteryear.

In decades past, Scorsese touched down in Berlin with major works such as Raging Bull (1981), Cape Fear (1992); Gangs of New York (2003 ), Shine a Light (2008) and Shutter Island (2010). It feels a long time since the event — traditionally one of the world’s great cinema showcases — has attracted such movies. In recent years the studio splashes have dried up.

So have memorable movies from A-list arthouse filmmakers. Scorsese this week sang the praises of the event for the encouragement it had given him as an emerging filmmaker. Citing Brian de Palma’s Silver Bear win for his second film Greetings in 1969, Scorsese said the prize had marked a turning point for unknown, independent American directors such as himself, de Palma,...

The New Hollywood revolution was raging in 1971, and studios were rapidly transitioning from old-school leadership to boat-rocking up-and-comers who seemed to have the pulse of the Baby Boomer-driven counterculture. The age of star-studded mega-musicals and old-fashioned oaters was over; movies didn't necessarily need a serrated edge to slash into the zeitgeist, but even a weepie like Arthur Hiller's "Love Story" boasted a lived-in verisimilitude. These films, shorn of backlot artifice, were happening in the real world.

Young moviegoers weren't the only ones craving authenticity. John Schlesinger's "Midnight Cowboy" couldn't have been voted Best Picture of 1969 without significant support from gray-haired Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members. This was a film that plunged viewers into the seamiest iteration of New York City ever captured by a studio movie, that dealt with issues of sex work and homosexuality so unflinchingly that the MPAA (now known as MPA) gave it an X-rating.