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Best Picture

“Ford v Ferrari”

“The Irishman”

“Jojo Rabbit”

“Joker”

“Little Women”

“Marriage Story”

“1917”

“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”

“Parasite”

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Best Supporting Actor

Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood”

Anthony Hopkins, “The Two Popes”

Al Pacino, “The Irishman”

Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”

Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”

Best Supporting Actress

Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell”

Laura Dern, “Marriage Story”

Scarlett Johansson, “Jojo Rabbit”

Florence Pugh, “Little Women”

Margot Robbie, “Bombshell”

Best Costume Design

“The Irishman”

“Jojo Rabbit”

“Joker”

“Little Women”

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”

Best Original Score

“Joker”

“Little Women”

“Marriage Story”

“1917”

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”

Best Animated Short Film

“Dcera (Daughter)”

“Hair Love”

“Kitbull”

“Memorable”

“Sister”

Best Live-Action Short Film

“Brotherhood”

“Nefta Football Club”

“The Neighbors’ Window”

“Sariahs”

“A Sister”

Best Sound Editing...

With a truncated window for the Oscars this year, the ceremony will take place in less than a month, which also means the nominations are being unveiled earlier than ever. Today, The Academy has announced their picks, which we’re rounding up below as they come in.

See the nominations below ahead of the ceremony on Sunday, February 9 at 8pm.

Best Picture

Ford v Ferrari

The Irishman

Jojo Rabbit

Joker

Little Women

Marriage Story

1917

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Parasite

Best Director

Martin Scorsese, The Irishman

Todd Phillips, Joker

Sam Mendes, 1917

Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Bong Joon Ho, Parasite

Best Actor

Antonio Banderas, Pain and Glory

Leonardo DiCaprio, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood

Adam Driver, Marriage Story

Joaquin Phoenix, Joker

Jonathan Pryce, The Two Popes

Best Actress

Cynthia Erivo, Harriet

Scarlett Johansson, Marriage Story

Saoirse Ronan, Little Women

Charlize Theron, Bombshell

Renée Zellweger, Judy

Supporting Actor

Tom Hanks,...

The Oscar nominations for the 92nd Academy Awards were announced live on Monday by “Star Trek” actor John Cho and “Insecure” star Issa Rae.

The Academy this year produced nine nominees for Best Picture, those being “Ford v. Ferrari,” “The Irishman,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Joker,” “Little Women,” “Marriage Story,” “1917,” “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” and “Parasite.”

“Joker” led all films with 11 nominations, including for Best Actor Joaquin Phoenix and Best Director Todd Phillips. It was followed by “The Irishman,” “1917” and “Once Upon a Time…in Hollywoood.”

This year’s Oscars ceremony, which takes place the earliest ever in awards season, is on Sunday, Feb. 9. And for the second year in a row, the ceremony will have no host.

Below is the full list of nominees in all 24 categories.

Also Read: 8 Biggest Changes to the Oscars in the 2010s, From #OscarsSoWhite to Envelopegate

Best Picture

“Ford v Ferrari”

“The Irishman...

Oscar nominations for the 92nd annual Academy Awards were announced Monday morning from the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Martin Scorsese’s mob epic “The Irishman,” Quentin Tarantino’s ode to Los Angeles “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” and Noah Baumbach’s drama “Marriage Story” are expected to sweep nominations. Renee Zellweger is favored to land her fourth Oscar nod, this time for her turn as Judy Garland in the biopic “Judy.” Meanwhile, Joaquin Phoenix (“Joker”) and Adam Driver (“Marriage Story”) are the odds-on favorites among lead actors.

Other films that are anticipating recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences include Sam Mendes’ WWI film “1917,” Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of “Little Women” and Bong Joon Ho’s social thriller “Parasite.

The Academy Awards will air live Feb. 6 on ABC.

Here is the full list of 2020 Oscar nominations (updating life):

Best Picture:

“Ford v...

Nominations for the 92nd Oscars were announced on Monday, January 13 at the academy’s headquarters in Beverly Hills, California. (Scroll down for the full and complete list.)

Final voting doesn’t start until January 30 and then runs for only six days; that is the shortest time for balloting in the history of these top movie honors. The Academy Awards ceremony takes place on February 9 and for the second time in as many years, it won’t have a host.

At 5:18 a.m. Pt/8:20 a.m. Et, nominees were announced in nine categories: Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Costume Design, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Animated Short and Live Action Short.

At 5:30 a.m. Pt/8:30 a.m. Et, nominees were announced in the remaining 15 races: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Makeup and Hairstyling, Original Song, Production Design, Visual Effects, Animated Feature,...

The nominations for the 2020 Academy Awards have been announced. As expected, Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” are all major contenders across various contenders. These films as well as Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” and Sam Mendes’ “1917” picked up multiple nominations across many categories, in addition to top bids for Best Picture.

Last year’s Oscar nominations were dominated by Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” (Netflix) and Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favorite” (Fox Searchlight), both of which earned 10 nominations. “Roma” took home honors for Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Foreign Language Film, but it was controversially beat by Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book” (Universal) in the Best Picture race. Many film critics were outraged over the end result and named “Green Book” the worst Best Picture winner since “Crash” infamously won the Academy...

I’ve now seen all 10 films in contention at the Oscars for Best International Film, including “Parasite,” “Pain and Glory,” “Les Miserables” and more. And it was fun eavesdropping on other film fans and asking others about their reactions to these movies. All of this took place at the 31st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which is now coming to a close after screenings of 188 films from 81 countries in 12 days.

Though films from the U.S. and other English-speaking nations are well represented in the screening lineup, Palm Springs is primarily known as an international festival with the spotlight on foreign language films. Scheduled as it is in the height of Oscar voting season, the festival has taken on a huge role in raising the profile of potential nominees and see them all in one place.

SEEIs Oscar for Best International Feature all locked up, or is there room for surprises?...

It's the final month+ of awards mania and we'll have final Oscar nom predictions up shortly. But what a busy weekend it already is... 

Globe Drama winner / Oscar hopeful 1917 just expanded into wide release, France's Oscar finalist Les Miserables opened in limited release. For home viewing Best Picture hopeful Joker and Oscar longshot-in-a-couple-of-categories The Lighthouse both just hit Blu-Ray. New to streaming is the Florence Pugh showcase horror film MidSommar on Amazon Prime, while action spectacle John Wick Parabellum (mysteriously not nominatd for stunts at SAG) arrives on HBO. But here's what's still to come this season... ...

Exclusive: Global streamer Mubi has taken worldwide Svod rights (excl. Spain) to Little Hands, Rémi Allier’s short film that is in the running for this year’s Live Action Short Film Oscar.

The pic screened at Telluride and also won last year’s César short film award in France. It tells the story of a factory employee who, upon discovering that the management is closing down his workplace, kidnaps the toddler of the director in order to negotiate.

It was produced by Benoît Roland (Wrong Men) and Pauline Seigland and Lionel Massol (Film Grand Huit). Wim Wenders and Dario Suter (Dcm) are executive producers.

The deal was struck between François Morisset from Salaud Morisset, a regular distributor of short films, and Kevin Chan from Mubi.

Paris and Berlin based Salaud Morisset has previously worked on Guy Nattiv’s 2019 Live Action Short Oscar-winning film Skin, Ladj Li’s short Les Miserables,...

Yes, we know: January has a reputation for being a dumping ground for films that smell a little iffy from a distance — witness this year’s Jan. titles Dolittle and Like a Boss. But it’s also the month when most of the world gets a first look at prestige films that previously only played in big cities (see: Les Miserables, the cop procedural that’s France’s Oscar submission for Best Foreign-Language Film), some intriguing stuff from the indie-movie sector (The Assistant, Color Out of Space) and a few...

On Tuesday (January 7), the Directors Guild of America announced the nominees for the 72st annual edition of the DGA Awards. The five contenders are: Bong Joon Ho (“Parasite”), Sam Mendes (“1917”), Martin Scorsese (“The Irishman”), Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) and Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”).

The DGA is aces at forecasting the eventual Oscar winner. Since the guild aligned itself with the academy calendar in 1950, 62 DGA champs have gone on to win at the Academy Awards as well. However, it does less well predicting the five Oscar nominees.

In its first 15 years, there were anywhere from four to 18 DGA Awards nominees. From 1963 – 1965, it went with five before going to 10 for the rest of the decade. Finally, beginning in 1970 it enshrined the number of nominees as five. And since then, there have only been five years where it previewed the exact lineup of Oscar contenders.

There are usually one...

Exclusive: Broadway actress/musician Alison Luff (Waitress) has been cast as the female lead opposite Stephen Amell and Alexander Ludwig in Heels, Starz’s eight-episode hourlong drama set in the outrageous world of independent professional wrestling.

Written by Michael Waldron and directed by Peter Segal, with Mike O’Malley as showrunner, Heels is a story about the men and women who chase their dreams in the world of small town pro wrestling. Set in a close-knit Georgia community, it follows a family-owned wrestling promotion as two brothers and rivals, Jack (Amell) and Ace (Ludwig) Spade, war over their late father’s legacy. In the ring, somebody must play the good guy (Ludwig) and somebody must play their nemesis, the heel (Amell). But in the real world, those characters can be hard to live up to — or hard to leave behind.

Luff will play Staci Spade, the reluctant young matriarch of a family-owned Southern wrestling promotion.

Guillaume Nicloux’s “To the Ends of the World,” Erwan Le Duc’s “The Bare Necessity” and Caroline Poggi & Jonathan Vinel’s “Jessica Forever” are among the ten French and French-language films set to compete at the 10th edition of MyFrenchFilmFestival, the online film showcase created by UniFrance.

Ira Sachs, the American director whose latest film “Frankie” competed at Cannes, will preside over the international jury which will comprise of the French actress Agathe Bonitzer (“Isadora’s Children”), Guatemaltec director Jayro Bustamante (“Ixcanul”), American actor-turned-director Brady Corbet (“Vox Lux”), Belgian director Judith Davis (“My Revolution”) and Czech director Michaela Pavlatova (“My Sunny Maad”). The other jury is made up of members of the international press.

“To the Ends of the World,” which world premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight last year, stars Gaspard Ulliel (“Saint Laurent”) as a young French soldier in Indochina, in 1945, who survives a brutal massacre in which...

Otis is back at school, and the teenagers (and teachers!) have some issues they need to talk about. 

Netflix has officially dropped the first trailer for Sex Education Season 2, and it teases a lot of drama for the characters. 

Sex Education follows Otis Milburn, a socially awkward high school student who lives with his sex therapist mother, Jean.

In Season 1, Otis and his friend Maeve Wiley set-up a sex clinic at school to capitalise on his intuitive talent for sex advice.

In season 2, as a late bloomer Otis must master his newly discovered sexual urges in order to progress with his girlfriend Ola whilst also dealing with his now strained relationship with Maeve.

Meanwhile, Moordale Secondary is in the throes of a chlamydia outbreak, highlighting the need for better sex education at the school and new kids come to town who will challenge the status quo.

The better sex education...

The PGA Awards has a stellar success rate at previewing the Best Picture line-up at the Oscars. When the academy expanded to 10 nominees in 2010, the Producers Guild of America followed suit. But while the Academy Awards shifted to a sliding scale in 2012, the PGA has stuck with 10 contenders (though it had 11 in 2018 due to a tie). That leeway has helped it maintain a staggering success rate at previewing the eventual Oscars roster.

Indeed, the guild has predicted 78 of the 89 of the Best Picture nominees over the past decade. So how many of this year’s 10 PGA nominees — “Ford v Ferrari,” “The Irishman,” “Jojo Rabbit,” “Joker,” “Knives Out,”

“Little Women,” “Marriage Story,” “1917,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” and “Parasite” — will make the cut with the academy?

Let’s look back at each year’s PGA Awards nominees in this new era of voting for Best Picture to see how they fared at the Oscars.

Writers Guild of America West and Writers Guild of America, East have announced nominations for outstanding achievement in screenwriting during 2019. Following up two big Golden Globes wins, rising awards contender “1917” landed an Original Screenplay nomination for Sam Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, along with nods for comedies “Knives Out,” “Booksmart,” and Globes-winner “Parasite,” as well as Noah Baumbach’s drama “Marriage Story.”

Baumbach’s partner, writer-director Greta Gerwig, landed a nomination for Adapted Screenplay for “Little Women.” Shockingly omitted was Anthony McCarten’s script for Netflix’s “The Two Popes,” which may turn up on Oscar nominations morning in the less competitive Adapted category; the WGA considered it as Original because McCarten’s play on which it was based had not been produced when the script was written.

And documentarian Alex Gibney scored not one but two nominations, for “Citizen K” as well as “The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.

What can we expect when the Producers Guild of America announces its nominees for Best Picture on Tuesday January 7? How closely will the guild’s top 10 preview the Academy Awards line-up that will be revealed six days later?

When the Oscars expanded to 10 nominees in 2010, the Producers Guild of America followed suit. But while the academy shifted to a sliding scale in 2012, the PGA has stuck with 10 contenders. That leeway has helped it maintain a staggering success rate at previewing the eventual Oscars roster. Indeed, the guild has predicted 78 of the 89 of the Best Picture nominees over the past decade.

Last year, the PGA nominated all eight of the Oscar contenders: “Black Panther,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Favourite,” “Green Book,” “Roma,” “A Star is Born” and “Vice.” The guild slate also included “Crazy Rich Asians” and “A Quiet Place.” “Green Book” won with the producers before taking home the top Oscar.

Gold Derby was on the red carpet and backstage in the press room for Sunday’s Golden Globes 2020 ceremony to chat with many of this year’s nominees and presenters. Among the eight celebrities and producers we interviewed on the red carpet in Beverly Hills were Brian Cox, Jonathan Pryce, Noah Baumbach and more.

The 77th annual Golden Globes ceremony on NBC was hosted by Ricky Gervais. During the event tonight, Tom Hanks received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for life achievement in film. Ellen DeGeneres accepted the Carol Burnett Award for life achievement in television.

SEEGolden Globes: Complete list of winners in all 25 races

Click each link below to be taken to the full interview from Sunday, January 5:

Noah Baumbach (“Marriage Story”), nominee for Best Film Drama and Best Film Screenplay

Josh Cooley, Mark Nielsen, Jonas Rivera (“Toy Story 4”), nominees for Best Animated Film

Brian Cox (“Succession...

Winners of the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards were revealed during a live telecast on Jan. 6 that airs live nationwide on NBC beginning at 8:00 p.m. Et/5:00 p.m. Pt that is hosted by Ricky Gervais. These awards, bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., honor the best in both movie and television for the calendar year 2018. There are 14 film categories and 11 TV races. Scroll down to see the full and complete list of Golden Globes winners (and nominees) for all 25 awards.

On the film front, the domestic drama “Marriage Story” leads with six nominations. Two crime stories — “The Irishman” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” — follow with five bids apiece. Reaping a surprising four bids each were “Joker” and “The Two Popes.”

Over on the television side of the ledger, two true-life limited series — “Chernobyl” and “Unbelievable” — earned a leading four nominations as did the third...

Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” has won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Comedy or Musical, one of the two top prizes bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (the other being Best Motion Picture Drama). “Hollywood” was widely seen as the frontrunner for the prize and was nominated in the category opposite Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out,” Craig Brewer’s “Dolemite Is My Name,” Taika Waititi’s “Jojo Rabbit,” and Dexter Fletcher’s “Rocketman.” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” received four additional Golden Globe nominations this year: Best Director and Best Screenplay for Tarantino, Best Actor in Comedy or Musical for Leonardo DiCaprio, and Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt. The film won the Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor prizes.

The big Golden Globes win for “Hollywood” is the latest victory for the 1969-set drama this awards season. The movie was named...

Winners of the 77th annual Golden Globes will be revealed on January 5 during a three-hour ceremony hosted by Ricky Gervais that airs live nationwide on NBC beginning at 8:00 p.m. Et/5:00 p.m. Pt. These prizes, bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., honor the best in both film and television for the calendar year 2019. The Golden Globe Awards have 14 movie categories and 11 TV races. Scroll down to see the full and complete list of nominations for all 25 award.

Among movies, “Marriage Story” leads with six nominations. Right behind with five apiece are “The Irishman” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” And two other films did better than expected by reaping four bids each: “Joker” and “The Two Popes.”

On the TV side, two limited series — “Chernobyl” and “Unbelievable” — lead with four nominations as does season 3 of the drama series “The Crown.” A lucky seven shows each claimed two nominations: “Barry,...

The Golden Globes are this weekend, and these last few days are the busiest for our predictions as Expert pundits and everyday prognosticators make or update their forecasts with their final insights (and bravest hunches). So where does the race stand as the awards get even closer? Scroll down for our complete predictions in all 14 film categories, listed in order of their racetrack odds with front-runners to win highlighted in gold.

Our odds are based on the combined predictions of thousands of our registered users who have made their picks in our predictions center. And the consensus is that Netflix’s “The Irishman” will win Best Film Drama. That’s actually all it’s forecast to win in a close race against “Joker,” “Marriage Story” and “The Two Popes,” but it’s not alone in that regard. We’re not predicting many films to win more than once.

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Turning a musical into a successful movie is no easy feat. A look back at the history of previous attempts proves that because for every amazing Les Miserables, there is a dreadful Cats. Some shows simply aren't made with a good enough story to transition into a cinematic experience, yet they are forced into that hole anyway.

Related: Cats: Jennifer Hudson's 5 Best & 5 Worst Movies (According to Rotten Tomatoes)

There are some amazing musicals that have been turned into just as great movies. Because of that, there will be more shows getting placed onto the big screen as films in the new decade, which is great as there are some tremendous musicals that seemingly lend themselves perfectly to that environment. However, hopefully, this decade will see some smarter choices take place as there are still some red herrings around Broadway and the West End that should be avoided at all costs.

Oscar-shortlisted French director Ly, who emigrated from Mali to the outskirts of Paris as a child, found his vision of cinema shaped by American films. “I watched a lot of films with African-American actors,” he says. “I watched ‘Menace II Society,’ ‘New Jack City’ and ‘Boyz n the Hood.’ I watched Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese films. Those films really inspired me growing up.”

When he was 17 years old, Ly bought his first camera. With no formal training, he taught himself on the job, shooting short films about life in Montfermeil, the Paris suburb where Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” took place — and the setting of Ly’s film of the same name. It premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

For more than 20 years, Ly has been making documentaries highlighting the problems of life in

his neighborhood. Ly has filmed the tensions between law enforcement and civilians. With “Les Misérables,...

The 2020 Golden Globe Awards air Sunday night, January 5. So who will win when prizes are handed out? Scroll down for our complete film predictions listed in order of our racetrack odds, with our projected winners highlighted in gold. And make or update your own predictions right here.

The Globes honor the best achievements in both film and television, and they’re one of the highest-profile events of the awards season. But unlike the Oscars, which are decided by thousands of members of the motion picture academy, the Globes are decided by fewer than 100 international journalists who make up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Sign UPfor Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions

Our odds, meanwhile, are calculated by combining the predictions of thousands of registered Gold Derby users. That includes Expert journalists from top media outlets, the Editors who cover awards year-round for Gold Derby, the Top 24 Users who...

Even as Netflix and other platforms continued to gain ground, France’s theatrical box office broke a 50-year record with 213 million ticket sales, showing that movie-going and streaming can co-exist. Admissions increased by 6%, and the French B.O. clocked in at about €1.4 billion ($1.57 billion), a slight increase on 2018.

Hollywood titles ruled the roost, breaking a 10-year record by accounting for 59% of all theatrical admissions in France in 2019, with 125 million tickets sold. Disney alone took a 23.4% market share, with “The Lion King” topping the list of highest-grossing films and five other titles – “Avengers: Endgame,” “Frozen 2,” “Toy Story 4,” “Captain Marvel” and “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” which is still in theaters – ranking in the top 10.

Overall, nine of the top 10 films came from U.S. studios. Besides the Disney tentpoles, they included Warner Bros.’ “Joker,” Universal’s “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” and Sony Pictures’ “Spider-Man: Far From Home.

Les Années 10

Long time actor and director Thierry de Peretti should have his highly anticipated third feature, Les Années 10 (formerly known as L’Infiltre) ready for 2020. Produced by Frederic Jouve, Peretti has amassed Pio Marmaï, Mathieu Kassovitz, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Alexis Manenti for his latest feature. His first feature, Les Apaches premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and his 2017 sophomore feature A Violent Life received a Special Screening at Cannes.

Gist: Based on L’infiltré: De la traque du Chapo Guzman au scandale français des stups by Hubert Avoine and Emmanuel Fansten, initial reports of the film’s plotline about a scandal involving a whistleblower working in conjunction with a journalist to unveil corruption in the French police force in the 2010s is apparently not quite correct and new details about the film’s narrative have not been disclosed.…...

Tom Hooper’s big-screen version of “Cats” is continuing to cough up hairballs at the box office — with outside estimates of Universal’s total losses on the musical ranging from $71 million to $100 million.

After 10 days in theaters, the pricey adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s London and Broadway hit has grossed only $38.4 million worldwide. Overall, box office analysts tell TheWrap that they expect “Cats” to finish deep in the red with a total domestic run of $40 million and a worldwide gross that would be lucky to reach $100 million — a devastating return considering the film’s reported budget of $95 million, before marketing costs.

With that result, the total gross for “Cats” would be more than 75% below the domestic and global totals of Fox’s 2017 musical hit “The Greatest Showman” and roughly a quarter of what Lionsgate’s Oscar-winning musical “La La Land” made the year before.

The film will also finish...

Exclusive: No amount of star power from Taylor Swift, James Corden, Idris Elba, Jason Derulo, etc., nor the direction of Oscar-winner Tom Hooper, could save Cats at the global box office.

Our finance sources informed us over this weekend that the Universal/Amblin/Working Title feature adaptation of the near $4 billion-grossing Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical is bound to lose at least $71M — that is, if the pic reaches a global box office result of $100M, meaning $40M stateside and $60M abroad. This is based off a production cost of $90M net–the pic was shot on soundstages in London–and a $115M estimated global P&a spend.

Broken further out, total WW theatrical rentals, global free/pay TV, and global home entertainment revenues, including streaming, are expected to total at least $155M. Home entertainment costs plus global P&a stands around $226M, we’re informed. Universal wasn’t available for comment on these numbers.

Year-end conversations about the movies are often dominated by top 10 lists from critics who spend the year watching movies. But they aren’t the only ones. Many of the most influential people responsible for getting movies out into the world are toiling away behind the scenes, whether they’re assembling venerated film festival lineups or acquiring and distributing some of the most revered films of the year.

Each year, IndieWire reaches out to a range of figures from the independent film community to give them the opportunity to single out some of their favorite movies from the past 12 months. This year’s respondents include programmers, publicists, and distribution executives. Provided with a flexible criteria for their lists, participants singled out a range of media — from television to theater and beyond — providing a unique window into the way many of the movers and shakers in film culture experienced the year as a whole.

As many expected, the movie adaptation of the musical Cats turned out to be the terrifying CGI-fest that no one was asking for - and its box office receipts really hammer home the failure. In its opening weekend, Cats brought in a dismal $6.5 million, according to Variety. That would be a pretty terrible opening weekend by any standards, but given how expensive the movie was to make, it's even worse.

Variety also reported that Cats cost $100 million just to make, and that's not even counting the marketing and distribution costs. Considering how ubiquitous the trailers and commercials for Cats have been, it seems pretty safe to assume that those costs were high as well. It wasn't a cheap movie to make, between the paychecks for the A-list cast and the hefty costs of the motion-capture-to-cgi filming. In all likelihood, Universal Pictures was hoping to replicate the success of 2012's Les Miserables: a star-studded,...

I cringed a bit when I read the social media reactions to the trailer for the big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats” last summer. I, for one, was captivated by director Tom Hooper‘s approach to 2012’s “Les Miserables,” another long-running, sung-through Broadway show. He enlisted live singing, focused on bringing out the emotions in the material, stacked the acting deck with big name stars and gave Anne Hathaway an Oscar-winning moment by having her own hair chopped to bits on camera as she wept through the production’s signature song “I Dreamed a Dream.”

But that ain’t “Cats.” If you found it hard to accept the de-aging technology used on the cast in “The Irishman,” just wait until you try to re-adjust your reality into seeing the likes of gorgeous Idris Elba as the evil Macavity being kind of naked but also encased in sleek black fur.

Over the course of a single year, the staff of IndieWire consumes a dizzying amount of films, thanks to packed film festival slates, stuffed streaming offerings, and regular old theatrical releases. Along the way, we find plenty of films to love, and closing out another year at the movies gives us a chance to keep spreading the good word of the year’s best (at least in our eyes).

For those of you obsessed with numbers, IndieWire’s overall top five film picks likely don’t surprise: Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” was the clear favorite, but it was followed by an array of darlings, including Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” the Safdie brothers’ “Uncut Gems,” Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” And while those top favorites appeared on a number of lists, a few films only appeared on one, including...

When Universal first debuted the trailer for “Cats,” social media, to put it mildly, lost its mind.

Initial footage for director Tom Hooper’s big-screen adaptation gave a glimpse at the computer wizardry, a phenomenon known in popular culture as “digital fur technology,” used to transform the actors into four-legged felines. The result, an unsettling amalgamation of CGI, shook Twitter to its core. It appears the moviegoing masses never recovered.

When “Cats” finally arrived in theaters, Universal anticipated that its starry cast — a group that includes Taylor Swift, Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo and James Corden — mixed with surrounding publicity could muster up at least $15 million in ticket sales. Instead, “Cats” fell short of expectations and clawed its way to $6.5 million at the domestic box office. It was a dismal showing for any major studio release, but especially one that cost $100 million before accounting for global marketing and distribution fees.

The atrocious response from audiences and critics toward the feature adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats has no doubt upset execs at Universal and Working Title this weekend. The movie wound up opening below its $10M-$15M projections to $6.5M, and while you can’t expect much business-wise from adult-skewing movies outside of Star Wars before Christmas Day, the audience PostTrak exits of 2 Stars and a C+ CinemaScore indicate a significantly less than Greatest Showman or Mary Poppins Returns box office future (those two holiday films scored A and A- CinemaScores) for the Tom Hooper directed musical.

In an age when we demand other prolific choices on the marquee outside of standard superhero and family franchise IP, musicals have shown to be a solid form of counterprogramming that taps into female audiences. Hence, the biggest mistake would be for Universal and Working Title...

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit.

It is now just two weeks and counting until ballots go out to Oscar voters. Except that with the speed of this shortened season, which will bring us on February 9 the earliest Oscar show ever, a lot of Academy members just getting into holiday-break mode don’t know what is going to hit them once the New Year’s ball drops in Times Square. Just one day later, on January 2, they will be told they can access their ballot and will have just five days to choose nominees for the 92nd annual Academy Awards.

As I have noted here recently, so many members I speak to don’t realize they have virtually no time to see these movies. One member, usually pretty engaged in the process, emails us: “I’m struggling to watch films. Between work and (kids) and not...

Over the course of the last four years, there has been at least one queer film in the Oscar race each year. “Carol” in 2016, “Moonlight” in 2017, “Call Me by Your Name” and “A Fantastic Woman” in 2018, “The Favourite” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2019. Alas, barring any big surprises, the streak may be broken at next year’s ceremony. That’s not a reflection of the many excellent Lgbtq films released this year, of which there are a variety. Celine Sciamma’s stunning masterpiece “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” was passed over as France’s Oscar submission in favor of Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables,” and Levan Akin’s powerful coming-of-age story “And Then We Danced” was recently left off the short list for Best International Feature.

Oscars or not, there is still so much to celebrate in queer cinema. More and more filmmakers are not only embracing queer characters and storylines,...

With a focus on Italian films accompanying a large selection of international features, most of which are competing for Oscars, the 31st annual Palm Springs Intl. Film Festival will run Jan. 3-12.

“An Almost Ordinary Summer,” directed by Simone Godano, will kick off the festival on Jan. 3. Other Italian films to unspool are “The Champion,” “Simple Women,” “The Disappearance of My Mother,” “A Soul Journey,” “Martin Eden,” “Sole” and “The Traitor.”

The festival will close Jan. 12 with “Military Wives,” directed by Peter Cattaneo.

Last year, Psiff attracted more than 136,000 attendees and festival organizers anticipate just as many in 2020.

“Some of our guests get a chance to see 40 movies in 10 days,” says festival chairman Harold Matzner. “I don’t know how they do it, but they do, and it’s an incredible cultural experience.”

For her inaugural year, artistic director Lili Rodriguez added big awards season contenders including “Pain and Glory,...

Attention, moviegoers searching for the worst movie of the year: We have a late-breaking winner. Cats slips in right under the radar and easily scores as the bottom of the 2019 barrel — and arguably of the decade. Even Michael Bay’s trash trilogy of soul-destroying Transformers movies can’t hold a candle. What happened?

Wasn’t the stage production of Cats — music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by poet T.S. Eliot — an award-winning smash from Broadway to Tokyo? It was. But in this all-star, all-awful screen version, directed by Tom Hooper...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences set a precedent in 1938 by nominating the French-language “Grand Illusion,” directed by Jean Renoir, as best picture. After that, Oscar voters’ enthusiasm for foreign-language films in that category was pretty subdued for decades.

Happily, that’s changing.

Last year, two foreign-language films were nominated for best picture, “Roma” and “Cold War.” It could happen this year, with “Pain and Glory” and “Parasite” likely, and “The Farewell” also possible; three in one year would be an Oscar record. And don’t overlook France’s “Les Miserables.”

As the world has gotten smaller, the role of foreign-language films has gotten bigger. The Academy is increasingly nominating foreign-language reps in other categories, such as the 30 times a director has been nominated, from Federico Fellini in 1961 (“La Dolce Vita”) to Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) and Pawel Pawlikowski (“Cold War”) last year.

Only five foreign-language pics have ever won...

Tom Hooper’s 2019 adaptation of “Cats” unfolds as an absurd and frequently nonsensical array of light and color, with actors bathed in ill-conceived CGI fur against a similarly invented London backdrop. Fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway blockbuster, and anyone familiar with the movie’s viral trailer that stoked excitement and horror in equal measures, will know that sounds about right.

Hooper’s “Cats” adaptation delivers on those expectations and then some, which makes it a fascinating mess of exuberant musical numbers and scintillating digitized sets. Those human-cat terrors already looked ridiculous slinking about a giant junkyard set in body-suits; who thought that closeups would actually improve the show?

But there’s the rub: The argument against “Cats” also makes the case for its existence, because everything ludicrous about the show has been cranked up to 11, with a restless artificial camera and actors so keen on upstaging one another...

Disney is capping off its banner year at the box office with “Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker,” director J.J. Abram’s grand conclusion to a nine-chapter saga that kicked off more than four decades ago.

The finale to George Lucas’ space opera set in a galaxy far, far away is arriving in theaters with outsized expectations, and not just because it caps off a franchise that helped usher in the modern blockbuster era of moviemaking. It’s also providing something of a lifeline to the theatrical exhibition business. Box office receipts have dipped 5% below last year as sequels and spinoffs to high-profile properties like “Men in Black” and “X-Men” sputtered in spectacular fashion. Theater owners and studios alike are hoping the return of Rey, Poe Dameron, Finn and Kylo Ren can help end the year on an upswing.

The latest “Star Wars” will easily crush its fellow big-screen competition this weekend.

Rarely in modern Hollywood has something so ambitiously garish been realized. Cats is a fascinating failure.

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In 1998, Andrew Lloyd Webber produced a Cats video special in which a live performance of the show was filmed. This was done, in part, because few thought the material would work as a Hollywood movie. They got it right the first time. So here we are with no need to split whiskers: Cats is a colossal failure. But a fascinating one. Attempting to make the cinematic out of something inherently stagebound, and a straightforward narrative from what was always just a collection of catchy melodies wrapped around witty but esoteric T.S. Eliot poems, this movie is one of the weirdest and most garish monstrosities to be birthed out of the Hollywood studio system in this century.

While the rest of the industry increasingly gravitates towards the safe and familiar, Universal—perhaps...

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” and “Cats” open this pre-Christmas Friday. Rarely have two high-profile films opened head to head, particularly for Disney juggernauts — they’ve either scared off other openers, or saw only calibrated counterprogramming.

The “Skywalker” date makes perfect sense for the calendar-obsessed Disney, while choosing to go a few days in advance of December 25 is a bit riskier for “Cats.” Give credit to Universal for gambling with the long-delayed musical adaptation; its gross will be dwarfed by “Star Wars.”

“Skywalker” is the fifth “Star Wars” title since Disney took over in 2015, preceded by “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi” as well as offshoots “Rogue One” and “Solo”. “Force” and “Jedi” opened on the same pre-Christmas weekend.

Both films have seen fans’ social media reactions range from rapturous to mixed. However, while “Cats” reviews are still under embargo at this writing (they go live December 18 at...

Much of the discussion around foreign-language films in 2019 has revolved around projects like “Parasite,” “Les Miserables,” and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.” And while those films are worthy of praise, film fans need to make sure they add “Invisible Life” to that discourse, as the Brazilian drama demands to be included in the discussion for best films of the year.

Continue reading ‘Invisible Life’ Exclusive Clip: Here’s A Peek At Amazon’s Oscar-Worthy Brazilian Drama at The Playlist.

The musical genre is still alive and dancing in Hollywood.

So many New York theater productions, such as Hamilton, Mean Girls or Prom: The Musical, have created Hollywood buzz over the last decade. And the film adaptations of Broadway musicals have either succeeded or bombed at the box office, but they've certainly delivered tunes still memorable to this day. 

Les Miserables was nominated for eight Oscars including best picture, best actor (Hugh Jackman) and best supporting actress (Anne Hathaway), who "Dreamed a Dream" after taking home her first golden statue for her role. Meanwhile, Into the Woods featured ...

The musical genre is still alive and dancing in Hollywood.

So many New York theater productions, such as Hamilton, Mean Girls or Prom: The Musical, have created Hollywood buzz over the last decade. And the film adaptations of Broadway musicals have either succeeded or bombed at the box office, but they've certainly delivered tunes still memorable to this day. 

Les Miserables was nominated for eight Oscars including best picture, best actor (Hugh Jackman) and best supporting actress (Anne Hathaway), who "Dreamed a Dream" after taking home her first golden statue for her role. Meanwhile, Into the Woods featured ...

During Tuesday’s Season 17 finale of “The Voice,” former coach Jennifer Hudson stopped by to deliver her first television performance of the iconic song “Memory” from “Cats.” Dressed elegantly in a black evening dress, Hudson stepped out on a stage filled with fog and an enormous moon backdrop. Hudson takes on the role of Grizabella in Tom Hooper‘s adaptation of the classic Broadway production, which will be released in theaters December 20. Watch JHud’s live performance video above.

See‘The Voice’ Season 17 championship recap: Is the finale winner Ricky Duran, Jake Hoot, Katie Kadan or Rose Short? [Updating Live Blog]

Believe it or not, it’s been 12 years since Hudson won Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars for playing Effie White in Bill Condon‘s 2006 musical “Dreamgirls.” “I have to just take this moment in,” Hudson said in her Oscar speech. “I cannot believe this. Look what God can do. If my...

Jennifer Hudson performed “Memory” from the upcoming “Cats” film on the finale of “The Voice” Tuesday night, but how does her version compare to Broadway’s best?

No one can question Hudson’s power — she won an Oscar in part to her rousing rendition of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from 2006’s “Dreamgirls.”

The version she performed on Tuesday is abridged, so we’ll have to wait until Dec. 20 to compare it to the big-screen version.

Here are the Top 10 performances of “Memory” from “Cats”:

10. Susan Boyle

Viral sensation Susan Boyle returned to the show that made her famous — “Britain’s Got Talent” — to perform once again. She rushes through the phrasing of the climax and drops a few notes, but this isn’t bad for a reality TV contestant.

9. Leona Lewis

Like Boyle, Leona Lewis rose to fame on a British reality TV competition — winning...

Having premiered half of the 10 films shortlisted for the international feature film Oscar and four of the five movies nominated in the Golden Globes’ foreign-language category, the Cannes Film Festival has once again proven its power to position non-English films in the awards season, ahead of the Venice, Toronto and Berlin fests.

Last year, six of the nine Oscar-shortlisted foreign-language films were Cannes titles, and three of the five Golden Globe nominees. There is also an increasing number of Cannes films being submitted by individual nations for Oscar consideration. Out of the 93 films submitted to the Academy in the international feature film category this year, 16 bowed on the Croisette.

Two of the films on the 2020 Oscar shortlist announced Monday are feature debuts that competed at Cannes: Ladj Ly’s timely police-brutality drama, “Les Miserables,” and Mati Diop’s supernatural romance, “Atlantics,” which represent France and Senegal, respectively, in the Oscar race.