News

Dick Pope, the legendary two-time Oscar nominated British cinematographer and longtime collaborator of auteur Mike Leigh, has died at the age of 77. News of Pope's passing was confirmed by the British Society of Cinematographers in a statement shared on their website earlier today.

"It is with deepest sadness that we learn of the passing of our friend and colleague Dick Pope Bsc," wrote the organisation in their post, which highlighted Pope's record three Camerimage Golden Frog wins as well as his achievement of the society's prestigious 'Cinematography in a Feature Film' award for his work on Mr. Turner. Continuing, the society also paid homage to their alumni's commitment to his craft and its furtherance, writing, "Dick had a reputation for being a wonderful collaborator and someone who was passionate about the artform of Cinematography. He was keen to embrace new technologies and ideas while also ensuring the skills and crafts...

Exclusive: Octogenerian Mike Leigh isn’t slowing down in terms of output. The acclaimed British filmmaker is currently enjoying strong notices for new film Hard Truths, which recently debuted at TIFF and is playing this week at the London Film Festival.

Leigh took part in a Deadline Contenders panel in London this morning during which he dismissed any talk of retirement and confirmed that he is planning to shoot another movie next year.

“We’re planning to make the next movie in 2025. We’re raising the money now.”

The seven-time Oscar nominee wouldn’t be drawn on the subject or creatives involved in the project but Leigh often works with a team including producer Georgina Lowe and DoP Dick Pope.

In a recent interview Leigh admitted that the filmmaking process has become more physically challenging: “It’s a challenge physically. My cinematographer, Dick Pope, who I’ve worked with ever since Life Is Sweet,...

Since the academy expanded the Best Picture category at the Oscars in 2010, Best Original Screenplay has gone to writers of a wide-range of genres: dramas; comedies (“Midnight in Paris”); biopics; true-life stories (“Spotlight”); memoirs (“Belfast”); period pictures (“Django Unchained”); war movies (“The Hurt Locker”); sci-fi (“Her”), thrillers horror (“Get Out”) and fantasies (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) . (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2025 Oscar predictions for Best Original Screenplay.)

Of this year’s top 10 contenders for Best Original Screenplay, nine were written, at least in part, by the directors. The exception is “Challengers,” which Justin Kuritzkes wrote for director Luca Guadagnino. He also adapted the William S. Burroughs novel “Queer” for this busy helmer and he could well contend over in Best Adapted Screenplay for that.

“Challengers” is, at its heart, a romance. Love, albeit short-lived, is also the subject of the frontrunner in this race, Sean Baker‘s “Anora.

Earlier this year, Christopher Nolan finally won Best Director at the Academy Awards. He picked up prize for helming Best Picture champ “Oppenheimer.” That victory came after five prior Oscar nominations, all of which ended in losses. Anyhow, Nolan has now finally been given the rewards his talents deserve. But there are still plenty of filmmakers who are overdue a Best Director gong. Scroll down for a list of five overdue filmmakers who could compete for the award at the 2025 Oscars.

Pedro Almodóvar

Almodóvar has five Oscar nominations and two victories to his name, so he may not seem overdue. He was nominated for Best Foreign Language Feature Film in 1989 for “Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” and in 2000 for “All About My Mother.” He won for the latter. He was then nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay in 2003 for “Talk to Her,” winning for his writing.

In 2008, filmmaker Mike Leigh released Happy-Go-Lucky, a bright and breezy comedy (as alluded to by its title) that still managed to have the occasional dramatic bite. Hard Truths provides the antithesis, a film about sisters that plays as an unsettling social drama full of tears, bitterness, and familial consternation, but...

Apocalypse in the Tropics

Venice, Telluride

Brazilian documentarian Petra Costa chronicles the dire state of democracy with this eye-opening exposé, delving into the troubling ties linking Christian evangelism and politics. Getting up close and personal with some powerful people amid a wave of social and political unrest, she shifts between the epic and the intimate, history and the present, to shed light on a phenomenon not only in her home nation, but around the world. — Jordan Mintzer

April

Venice, Toronto

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s miraculous feature centers on an Ob-gyn (a marvelous Ia Sukhitashvili) who performs secret abortions for desperate women in deepest rural Georgia. Like Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, the drama emphasizes the risks of backstreet terminations as well as the shame and expense that prevent access. Offsetting the grimness of it all are bouts of transcendent beauty. — Leslie Felperin

Babygirl

Venice, Toronto

A spectacular Nicole Kidman...

It shouldn’t be hard for “Hard Truths” to get some Oscar love, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be.

British actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste delivers an emotionally charged performance in Mike Leigh’s powerful drama. She portrays a woman on the verge of mental collapse, navigating her life with a volatile mix of vulnerability and rage. Whether interacting with a furniture store clerk, her sister, or her husband and child, Jean-Baptiste commands the screen for nearly every one of the film’s 97 minutes, taking the audience on a turbulent emotional ride. But that can be a lot for moviegoers to handle. Hopefully, the searing nature of the performance won’t prevent voters from nominating her for best lead actress at this year’s Academy Awards.

In order for that to happen, Bleecker Street, the film’s distributor, will need strong word-of-mouth to keep the drama Jean-Baptiste and “Hard Truths” in the awards conversation.

Mike Leigh is nothing if not an expert at conceiving (in conjunction with talented actors) a certain kind of larger-than-life character. Well, larger-than-life within the context of a realist drama. Think of Johnny in Naked, the revolting and terminally ranting man, or Poppy in Happy-Go-Lucky, a young woman perpetually optimistic to the point of threatening her own safety. They are not necessarily the people you meet every day, but they articulate the very real worlds that Leigh creates, often as forms of social criticism.

Hard Truths introduces the newest character in this canon: Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptise). The mother figure in a working-class family that includes the stoic tradesman Curtley (David Webber) and layabout 22-year-old son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett), her life seems a nonstop series of indignities both emotional and physical. Flying off the handle with zingers at every person she can––be it her family, service workers, or doctors simply...

Pansy, the central character in “Hard Truths,” British director Mike Leigh’s first film in six years, is one of the most unpleasant, off-putting and utterly exhausting characters to grace a movie screen in years. And the fact that we feel for Pansy by the end of the 97 minutes of Leigh’s spare and wrenching gem is one of the small miracles of an extraordinarily moving film.

From “Naked” to “Secrets & Lies,” “Vera Drake” to “Topsy Turvy,” “Happy-Go-Lucky” to “Mr. Turner,” Leigh has been a craftsman whose films are impressive vehicles for creating empathy for difficult characters — or, rather, for difficult people, so rich and true do they appear.

“Hard Truths” brings Leigh back to a contemporary story for the first time since “Another Year” in 2010, with his last two movies being the period pieces “Mr. Turner” in 2014 and “Peterloo” in 2018. And it reunites him with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the...

Some people bring happiness and positivity into the world, uplifting the lives of all around them, and some make flowers wilt and milk curdle wherever they go. As Pansy, Marianne Jean-Baptiste embodies the latter sort in “Hard Truths,” coming away from her reunion with “Secrets & Lies” director Mike Leigh with her richest character yet — not economically speaking, of course, though we’d all be millionaires if we had a nickel for every blistering complaint that spills from Pansy’s lips.

“Hard Truths” arrives more than 50 years after Leigh’s first film, “Bleak Moments,” bookending a career of tough, tell-it-like-it-is looks at working-class British life. Frankly, that vague-sounding title seems better suited to a Criterion Collection boxed set of his work than to his latest feature. A return to intimate kitchen sink realism after the grand-scale ambition of several relatively expansive period pieces — “Topsy-Turvy,” “Vera Drake,” “Mr. Turner” and “Peterloo...

Director Mike Leigh vividly remembers the 1997 Academy Awards, where Marianne Jean-Baptiste was nominated for best supporting actress for her role in his best picture nominee “Secrets & Lies.”

“She should have won,” Leigh said during an interview at the Variety Studio, sponsored by J Crew and SharkNinja, during the Toronto International Film Festival.

Jean-Baptiste lost the award to Juliette Binoche, who shockingly won for her performance in “The English Patient,” which also took home the best picture Oscar. However, neither Binoche nor Jean-Baptiste were favored to win. Instead, Lauren Bacall in “The Mirror Has Two Faces” won Golden Globe and SAG prizes for her work.

“The person who won that year walked backstage after the interviews, came straight over to Marianne and said, ‘You should have won this,’” Leigh recalled. “That has to be for the record.”

Nearly three decades later, Leigh and Jean-Baptiste are teaming up again for Leigh’s 15th feature film,...

One of IndieWire’s most-anticipated fall film premieres this year, “Hard Truths” reunites beloved (and seven-time Oscar-nominated) director Mike Leigh with actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for his 1996 Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Secrets & Lies.” In “Hard Truths,” out from Bleecker Street for an awards-qualifying run in December after debuting at the Toronto and New York film festivals, Jean-Baptiste plays a woman sick to death of life, and she’ll tell anyone about it who’s willing to listen. Watch the trailer below.

Here’s the official synopsis courtesy of Bleecker Street: “Legendary filmmaker Mike Leigh returns to the contemporary world with a fierce, compassionate, and often darkly humorous study of family and the thorny ties that bind us. Reunited with Leigh for the first time since multiple Oscar-nominated ‘Secrets and Lies,’ the astonishing Marianne Jean-Baptiste plays Pansy, a woman wracked by fear,...

Serbian filmmaker Milica Tomović, whose sophomore feature, “Big Women,” was one of the big winners at the Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry awards on Thursday, thinks audiences are afraid of women behaving badly. “People are not that interested to watch movies with bad female characters who do bad things,” the director told Variety.

“Big Women,” which is produced by Dragana Jovović of Non-Aligned Films and Jelena Radenković for Big Time Production, won the Eurimages Co-Production Development Award in Sarajevo. The film is pitched as a road-trip dramedy that follows two wild women who embark on an unexpected trip to the coast of Montenegro. There they’ll settle forgotten bills, rediscover their friendship and uncover long-buried secrets.

Describing the film as “a character-based story,” Tomović said it’s “based on the dynamics of this very strong friendship.” “This is the center of the story, between Mira and Tina,” she said of...

British filmmaker Mike Leigh will be feted at this year’s Toronto Film Festival with the TIFF Ebert Director Award for career achievement. The announcement was made this morning by TIFF head Cameron Bailey.

Leigh returns to TIFF this year for the World Premiere of his 23rd film, Hard Truths, screening as part of the Special Presentations programme. He reunites with Academy Award nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies) in the pic which is described as an “intimate study of modern family life.” Hard Truths will be distributed by Bleecker Street in the US and by Mongrel Media in Canada. Leigh has had eight films in Official Selection at the festival, including Another Year, Happy-Go-Lucky, and Mr. Turner.

Named after legendary film critic Roger Ebert, previous recipients of the award include Martin Scorsese, Claire Denis, Ava DuVernay, Wim Wenders, and the late Agnès Varda.

The Canadian festival further announced this...

Mike Leigh is set to received a Tribute Award at the 2024 Toronto Film Festival.

Leigh, who returns to the festival with the world premiere of Hard Truths, will receive the TIFF Ebert Director Award on Sept. 8 after earlier bringing films like Another Year, Happy-Go-Lucky and Mr. Turner to the Canadian festival. Prior awards for Leigh include seven Oscar nominations, the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Golden Lion at Venice.

TIFF will also give Canadian director Durga Chew-Bose the TIFF Emerging Talent Award. The Chloë Sevigny-starring adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s classic novel Bonjour Tristesse from Chew-Bose is set to open TIFF’s Discovery program with a world premiere.

Toronto organizers also announced that French songwriting and composing duo Camille Dalmais and Clément Ducol will receive the TIFF Artisan Award for composing the soundtrack for Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez. French director Audiard’s crime musical earned the...

Renowned British filmmaker Mike Leigh believes that if the subjects of his 2018 historical drama “Peterloo” were alive to see the upcoming U.K. general elections they would be “not only horrified but mystified” about “people procrastinating about whether to vote and seeing justification in not voting, which is what’s happening right now.”

While in conversation about his career with Chief Executive of Film London Adrian Wooton at the Mediterrane Film Festival, the director emphasized that his retelling of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 is a film “about democracy” and felt it was vital to highlight the importance of voting ahead of the elections.

Speaking on his period films, which include “Peterloo,” 2014’s “Mr. Turner” and 1999’s “Topsy-Turvy,” Leigh said those were “the only times where I’ve been able to get bigger budgets.” “What I failed to do and continue to fail to do to this day is to get...

Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival has set the full competition and industry lineup for its second edition, which runs June 22 to 30 in the country’s capital, Valletta.

The programme includes 15 films in competition, seven out-of-competition, and seven films competing in the environment-themed Mare Nostrum section, topped up by 14 immersive projects.

Select competition titles include Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest Kinds of Kindness, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance, and The Damned by Italian filmmaker Roberto Minvervini. All three films debuted at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Scroll down to see the full lineup. Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate director Tim Miller will serve on the competition jury.

The festival has also set its industry lineup, featuring a series of masterclass sessions. Speakers include editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis, production designer Nathan Crowley, casting director Margery Simkin, and composer Simon Franglen...

A24 is reuniting with Talk To Me co-directors Danny and Michael Philippou on the horror title Bring Her Back to star Sally Hawkins.

Plot details remain under wraps on the project, which is being produced by Causeway Films’ Samantha Jennings and Kristina Ceyton. The compnay’s credits include The Babadook, The Nightingale, and this year’s Sundance selection The Moogai.

Production is scheduled to commence this summer and at time of writing it was unclear whether A24 will introduce Bring Her Back to international buyers in Cannes.

Hawkins earned a lead actress Oscar nomination for The Weight Of Water in...

UK director Mike Leigh will receive a lifetime achievement award at Malta’s second annual Mediterrane Film Festival (June 22-30).

The seven-time Oscar nominee will also host a masterclass and participate in an in conversation with Adrian Wootton, CEO at the British Film Commission, with whom the festival has a partnership.

Leigh began his career in theatre and TV with work including Abigail’s Party in 1977. He focused on features throughout the 1990s, winning acclaim for films such as High Hopes, Life Is Sweet, Naked and Secrets And Lies. The latter won the Palme d’Or in 1996.

His following films included Topsy-Turvy,...

Mike Leigh, the veteran director of “Vera Drake,” “Another Year” and “Happy-Go-Lucky,” will be honored at Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival with its Career Achievement Golden Bee Award.

Leigh will also host a masterclass at the festival, the second edition of which is taking place June 22 to 30 in Malta’s capital city of Valletta. The director, who has earned seven Oscar nominations and won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for 1993’s “Naked,” will be in conversation with Adrian Wootton, chief executive of Film London and the British Film Commission.

The Mediterrane Film Festival has also revealed its first jury members, who will judge the festival’s competition section, consisting of 12 films from the region. At the festival’s Golden Bee Awards closing ceremony on June 30, prizes will be handed out for best feature film, acting performance, screenwriting, production design, creative technical performance and the special jury award.

Jury...

Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival will honor BAFTA-winning writer-director Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, Another Year, Happy-Go-Lucky) with its inaugural career achievement Golden Bee Award this year.

The honor is awarded “in recognition of a lifetime achievement in film,” organizers said Monday. “Leigh, who has received seven Academy Award nominations across his career, will also host a master class in the upcoming second edition of the festival,” which will take place June 22-30 in Valletta, the capital of the island of Malta.

Palme d’Or-winning director Leigh will be in conversation with Adrian Wootton, who previously served as acting director of the British Film Institute and is currently CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission.

Last year, StudioCanal acquired U.K. rights to Leigh‘s secretive project Hard Truths, starring Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste, marking the first time the distributor has worked with the iconic director. Bleecker...

Oh, Captain, my Captain! Hayley Atwell is joining the cast of Netflix’s Heartstopper, and she’s bringing Jonathan Bailey and Eddie Marsan along for the ride.

Heartstopper is about love, friendship, loyalty, and mental illness. It encompasses all the small stories of Nick and Charlie’s lives that make something more significant. Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor) attend the same school but only meet the day they’re made to sit together. Sparks (or leaves) begin to fly, and soon, the duo falls in love and embarks on a relationship worth aspiring to. Netflix’s Heartstopper also expands the roles of Nick and Charlie’s friends, who each have challenges to overcome throughout the series.

When Hayley Atwell joins Heartstopper Season 3, she’ll play Diane, Nick’s aunt, who takes him on a summer holiday to Menorca and imparts some tough advice about his relationship with Charlie.

The actor on playing Amy Winehouse’s dad, leaving school at 15, and why he loves going back to London’s East End

Eddie Marsan, 55, is an actor it is impossible not to like – although he has taken care in his versatile career (he has been in more than 70 films and counting) not always to be typecast as the twinkling, approachable East Ender you meet in person. He is one of our top character actors, with roles including the irresistibly bonkers driving instructor in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky and a seven-year stint as Terry in Ray Donovan. Next month he stars as John Adams, opposite Michael Douglas, in the new Apple TV+ series Franklin, about Benjamin Franklin’s mission in France to secure American independence, and Mitch Winehouse, Amy’s dad, in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s new film Back to Black.

What sort of a man is Mitch? He came out pretty...

As Reece Shearsmith just announced, it’s the beginning of the end for Inside No. 9. Filming on the horror-comedy anthology’s ninth and final series began in late 2023, which means a wrap on one of the BBC’s most consistently entertaining and inventive shows is imminent.

Oh it's the beginning of the end. #insideno9

— Reece Shearsmith ❄️ (@ReeceShearsmith) January 8, 2024

Series nine is expected to air in spring 2024, and will add a final six episodes to the existing 49 stories in Shearsmith and co-creator Steve Pemberton’s back catalogue. Barring the first look image above, which shows Pemberton in drag at an underground train station (platform no. nine?), we don’t know anything about the stories, settings or characters yet, but we do know who’ll be joining the pair as guest stars… and it’s a deep bench.

One of Britain’s greatest working actors, Eddie Marsan will appear. As will the brilliant Siobhan Finneran,...

It’s 2010, and Gemma Arterton is describing to Empire Magazine having spent an entire day shooting kidnap thriller The Disappearance of Alice Creed in tears. “Your body’s not supposed to cry that much. It is exhausting.” Martin Compston, her co-star in the crying scene, agrees in earnest and the interviewer jokes off-camera, “So what you’re saying is: feel-good hit of the summer?”

Compston laughs, “Yeah, Disney Channel!” and Arterton repeats the gag, shaking her head at its ridiculousness “Disney Channel!”

13 years, a brand shift and a streaming revolution later, and Disney is now the UK home of The Disappearance of Alice Creed. Disney+ is also the UK home of writer-director J Blakeson’s latest collaboration with Arterton: TV thriller Culprits, which is out on Hulu in the US.

That eight-part series is the story of consequences catching up with the diverse crew who pulled off a mega-money heist years earlier.

Exclusive: Sally Hawkins, the Golden Globe-winning British actress best known for roles in Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water and the Paddington franchise, has returned to Creative Artists Agency for representation.

Hawkins had previously been with CAA from January 2015 – December 2019, picking up U.S. representation again just recently after some time away. She will next be seen starring opposite Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant and Timothée Chalamet in Paul King’s Wonka, portraying the mother of the latter’s enigmatic chocolatier in the film out via Warner Bros December 15th.

Taking Hawkins’ accomplished career to new heights in 2017 was the romantic fantasy The Shape of Water, which had her playing Elisa, a custodian who falls in love with the amphibian creature being studied at her government laboratory. The role brought Hawkins her second nominations at both the Academy Awards and the BAFTAs, as well as noms at the Critics’ Choice Awards,...

Eddie Marsan admitted to being fearful of “white working-class men” while growing up in east London.

The Ray Donovan actor was born into a working-class family in Bethnal Green; his father was a lorry driver and his mother was a school dinner lady.

On the Channel 4 News podcast Ways To Change The World With Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Marsan said there was “a lot of violence” when he was growing up, “a lot of criminality”.

“The estate where I was raised, most of the fathers had court orders not to come near the house.”

Guru-Murthy asked the actor if he remembered being “afraid of men” as a young boy.

“I remember being afraid of white working-class men,” the actor responded.

“It’s very interesting... there are other actors from the same background like Danny Dyer or Ray Winstone who are much more successful and much more charismatic in portraying those men,...

Eddie Marsan has called out the friend of a college “bully” who tried to mock him on social media.

The London-born actor, who has been in the profession since the 1990s, has racked up an impressive string of credits throughout his career, including roles in Mission: Impossible III (2006), Mike Leigh film Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (2009) and The World’s End (2013), directed by Edgar Wright.

On Monday (3 April), Marsan, 54, spotted a mean-spirited post on Twitter reading: “Do you ever scroll through Netflix, when you think that you’ve found a film to watch, all of a sudden you scream “Eww! F*** that! It’s got Eddie Marsan in it!”? It keeps happening...”

In reply, one of the actor’s former fellow students at London College of Printing School of Media in Elephant and Castle wrote: “Many years ago my oppo was at the Print College @ the Elephant. Marsan came late...

Actress Rhea Seehorn discusses a few of her favorite movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Swimmer (1968)

Linoleum (2023)

Close Encounters of The Third Kind (1977)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)

Glengarry Glenn Ross (1992)

Short Cuts (1993)

Lars And The Real Girl (2007)

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

Breaking The Waves (1996)

Sound Of Metal (2020)

Starman (1984)

The Worst Person In The World (2021)

Beatriz At Dinner (2017)

Frida (2002)

The Shape Of Water (2017)

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)

The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

The Lobster (2015)

Delicatessen (1992)

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)

The Favourite (2018)

World’s Greatest Dad (2009)

Birdman (2014)

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

The Stepford Wives (1975)

The Stepford Wives (2004)

Triangle Of Sadness (2022)

Get Out (2017)

Nope (2022)

Brazil (1985)

Safe (1995)

Withnail & I (1987)

The Fisher King (1991)

Regarding Henry (1990)

Lost in La Mancha (2002)

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote...

Sarah Niles is a British actress. She is best known for her roles in The Crucible (2014), Ted Lasso (2021) and Riches (2022).

Sarah Niles Biography: Age, Early Life, Family, Education

Sarah Niles was born on June 17, 1987 (Sarah Niles’ age: 35), in London, England. In the late 50s, her parents, an electrician, and a care nurse, moved from Barbados to Britain. Niles is the youngest of three children. She studied at the Manchester School of Theatre, a branch of the Manchester Metropolitan University.

Sarah Niles Biography: Career

Niles started her career on the stage in the National Theatre, The Old Vic, The Bush Theatre and The Royal Court. In 2014 she played as Tituba in The Crucible to a sold-out crowd at The Old Vic, which was later streamed to movie theaters. Other movies Niles had a role in include Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Rocks (2019) and This is Christmas (2022). Niles also spent some time on the television screen...

First time the distributor has handled Leigh’s work theatrically.

Studiocanal has acquired UK distribution rights to Mike Leigh’s untitled new film, which will shoot later this year.

It is the first time the distributor will release one of Leigh’s films theatrically in the UK.

Bleecker Street has North American rights, which also represents a first collaboration with Leigh and his UK production company Thin Man Films.

Cornerstone Films is launching international sales on the film at the European Film Market in Berlin this week.

Plot and precise production details have not yet been confirmed.

Film4, a regular...

It won’t be “Another Year” after all before we see Mike Leigh’s next movie.

The seven-time Oscar-nominated British filmmaker behind classics new and old like “Secrets & Lies,” “Happy-Go-Lucky,” and “Topsy-Turvy” hasn’t released a picture since his 2018 epic “Peterloo” got backed by Amazon. The director in February 2020, of all times, announced a new project with U.S. distribution courtesy of Bleecker Street. The rest is history, and now, three years later, the film is starting to take shape.

The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Leigh’s next movie, financed by Film4 and set for a hometown U.K. release from eOne, will at last begin production this year. But there’s a catch for the next film from the “Vera Drake” writer-director, which is that any details remain not just scarce but nonexistent: The project is reportedly so secret that plot specifics are not only being kept...

In the Academy’s Andrea Riseborough fracas, the loser is the actress herself. The respected 41-year-old British thespian earned an Oscar nomination for a lauded performance as a down-and-out alcoholic in scrappy indie “To Leslie” (Momentum Pictures), but her name will also be remembered for her association with the grassroots awards push that upended the traditional Oscar campaigning process.

While some champion the underdog success of “To Leslie,” others decry the methods deployed to achieve it. That’s why the Academy Board of Governors met on Zoom this week to discuss the process, a meeting attended by unhappy players such as Whoopi Goldberg, and Terilyn A. Shropshire.

Academy CEO Bill Kramer emerged with a quiet statement that while Riseborough could keep her nomination, campaign rules must be further updated and clarified. “We did discover social media and outreach campaigning tactics that caused concern,” he said. “These tactics are being addressed with the responsible parties directly.

Nothing — not Tom Cruise’s snub nor Austin Butler’s lingering Elvis Presley inflections — has caused quite as much a stir around this year’s Oscars as the best-actress nomination for British actress Andrea Riseborough.

Riseborough was unexpectedly nominated for her performance as an alcoholic Texas single mother in the scantly seen indie drama “To Leslie”, a pick that shocked Oscar pundits and has since brought scrutiny from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. For a movie that has grossed 27,322 at the box office, “To Leslie” and Riseborough have made a lot of noise.

At issue is the way Riseborough’s candidacy was promoted. Though many awards contenders are backed by orchestrated campaigns paid for by their film’s studio, Riseborough rose into the Oscar ranks thanks largely to the grassroots efforts of “To Leslie” director Michael Morris and his wife, actor Mary McCormack. They urged stars to...

Chatting away to Sally Hawkins, as you do, in the fabled Abbey Road Studios in posh North London neighborhood of St. John’s Wood, she tells me ”I feel fine” when I inquire after her well-being.

Our feet are planted in the very spot where The Beatles recorded the track for “I Feel Fine,” a single that topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic back in 1964. I couldn’t tell whether Hawkins purposefully chose those words to chime with where we were stood.

Related Story Breaking Baz: Hot Star Paul Mescal Heats Up London Theater; BAFTA Talks Gender Neutrality; All About Amy Winehouse When We Were Neighbors Related Story 'Glass Onion' Claims Title Of Most-Viewed Film In A Week On Nielsen U.S. Streaming Charts; 'Yellowstone' Has Its First Billion-Minute Week Related Story Joe Cornish Talks Netflix Ghost Hunter Series 'Lockwood & Co...

Germany’s KiKA, France’s TF1 and Denmark’s Dr Sales figure among the best-known of contenders for the 2022 Cartoon Tributes, awarded for outstanding achievement in Europe’s TV animation industry.

France, followed by Spain, dominates Cartoon’s three categories of broadcaster, investor/distributor and producer of the year, which will be voted on by the about 1,000 delegates at this year’s Cartoon Forum, which takes place in Toulouse, Southern France, over Sept. 19-22. Award winners will be announced on Sept. 22.

Backed by German public broadcast giants Ard and Zdf, KiKa figures as Germany’s biggest kids connect provider. But it will face tough competition from TF1 Unité Jeunesse, the children’s arm of giant French broadcast network TF1 whose kids slot Tfou broadcasts 70 hours of programming a year.

Competing for distributor of the year Dr Sales, the international sales arm of Denmark’s public broadcaster, weighs in as a...

In the nearly seven-decade history of the Primetime Emmys, there have only been five instances of a series netting three Best Comedy Supporting Actress nominations in the same year. This precedent was established in 2004 by “Sex and the City” ladies Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon and was then emulated in 2017, 2018 and 2021 by various trios from “Saturday Night Live.” This year, Sarah Niles, Juno Temple and Hannah Waddingham of “Ted Lasso” added their names to the list. The latter two previously vied for the 2021 prize, which went to Waddingham, while Niles stands as the only Emmy newcomer in the group.

Niles joined the cast of “Ted Lasso” in its second season, which originally streamed on Apple TV+ from July to October 2021. Her character, sports psychologist Dr. Sharon Fieldstone, was hired during the season premiere to help the AFC Richmond team out of a collective funk. Her episode submission, “Headspace,...

After roles in Catastrophe and I May Destroy you, Sarah Niles is relishing her Emmy nomination for Ted Lasso. She talks about giggling on set and why British shows need to be braver

It might be the medical breakthrough the world has been waiting for. Based on a sample size of one, it appears that an Emmy nod can cure Covid. Sarah Niles was laid up in bed at home in London when she heard that, 5,000 miles away in Los Angeles, she’d been nominated for best supporting actress in a comedy series. “I was feeling really sick,” she says, “but I soon got better. A few hours later I started testing negative.”

Her role as the sports psychologist Dr Sharon Fieldstone in the hit football comedy Ted Lasso has brought overdue acclaim for an actor who’s been flitting between stage and screen for two decades. Niles is a...

Anyone tracking Andrea Riseborough’s career will notice a certain tendency to tackle dark material. That was certainly the case for “Here Before,” an unsettling thriller about a woman who comes to believe the reincarnated spirit of her daughter has moved in next door.

“It’s a huge mountain to climb, the journey of knowing what it’s like to have a grown child pass away,” she told IndieWire during a recent interview. “Stepping into what that might be like for a couple of months while making the film was certainly very difficult. It’s actually quite a lonely experience.”

But she quickly moved on to the next project — and the next one after that, and the next one after that. In total, Riseborough has completed seven films since pandemic shutdowns started in 2020. She only stopped working for three months. “In some ways, I feel safer at work than anywhere else,...

STX Films has released the trailer for its upcoming action thriller “The Contractor,” starring Chris Pine. The film will be released in theaters and digitally on April 1.

After special forces sergeant James Harper (Pine) is involuntarily discharged from the army, he contracts with an underground military operation and finds himself entangled in a dangerous conspiracy that leaves him fighting for his life. The trailer shows Pine jumping off a bridge, dodging bullets and escaping explosions, with no shortage of fist fights in the mix.

“It’s easy to kill,” one man says in the trailer, “but it’s much harder to survive.”

The film also stars Kiefer Sutherland (“Melancholia”), Ben Foster (“The Messenger”), Gillian Jacobs (“Community”), Eddie Marsan (“Happy-Go-Lucky”) Jd Pardo (“Mayans M.C.”) and Florian Munteanu (“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”). “The Contractor” marks the English language film debut for Swedish director Tarik Saleh (“Westworld”), and...

Exclusive: Sebastian de Souza, Eddie Marsan and Rich Sommer have boarded the Chloe Domont-directed finance world thriller opposite Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich.

The MRC and T-Street emerging filmmaker label movie, which Deadline first told you about, is already in production.

de Souza stars as Leo in Hulu and MRC Television’s The Great from Oscar-nominated Tony McNamara. Prior to this, he starred as Gareth in the critically acclaimed adaptation of Normal People, for Hulu and the BBC, directed by the Oscar-nominated Lenny Abrahamson. He was seen in the iconic role of Sandro Botticelli in the second season of Medici, opposite Sean Bean, Daniel Sharman and Bradley James on Netflix. Prior to this, he played a guest lead in the feature Pixie, opposite Alec Baldwin and Olivia Cooke, directed by Barnaby Thompson. He also played Edmund in Claire McCarthy’s feature Ophelia, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival,...

U.K. director Mike Leigh directs films in a wide range of moods but his working-class dramas are what made his name. All or Nothing is an emotionally punishing story of everyday life on a lower rung of a stagnant economy, where nobody has dreams and pessimism is the order of the day. The bitterness and anger are most evident in the abusive attitudes and verbal brutality from one generation to the next, even with the caring, sensitive Penny (Lesley Manville) and the inoffensive Phil (Timothy Spall). Leigh’s players craft heartbreaking characters whose individual miseries can’t be dismissed. We invest heavily in the hope of a positive outcome even as everything we see says, ‘no.’ Yet the film’s honesty doesn’t want us to give up on these people.

All or Nothing

Blu-ray

Severin Films

2002 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 128 min. / Street Date November 23, 2021 / Available from Amazon / 29.95

Starring: Lesley Manville,...

The director of Spencer, Pablo Larraín, discusses a few of his favorite movies with host Josh Olson.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Spencer (2021)

Jackie (2016)

Tony Manero (2008)

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) – David DeCoteau’s trailer commentary

Back To The Future (1985) – Tfh’s time-traveling quiz

Fitzcarraldo (1982) – Dennis Cozzalio’s Herzog guide

Burden of Dreams (1982)

Aguirre: The Wrath Of God (1972)

Paris, Texas (1984) – Karyn Kusama’s trailer commentary

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) – Dan Ireland’s trailer commentary

Barry Lyndon (1975) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

The Shining (1980) – Adam Rifkin’s trailer commentary

Dr. Strangelove (1964) – Michael Lehman’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A Woman Under The Influence (1974)

Salò, Or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Theorem (1968)

Medea (1969)

Naked (1993)

Secrets And Lies (1996) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Vera Drake (2004)

Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008)

A History Of Violence (2005)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

The Master (2012)

Phantom Thread (2017) – Dennis...

Mary J. Blige has a long, illustrious career, riddled with Top Ten hits, million-selling albums, Grammys, and Oscar nominations. But there’s one project that has particular importance for her: “I have 13 albums, but my second, My Life, is my most important,” she says in a new documentary commemorating the LP, originally released in 1994. Blige sees My Life not only as the moment she “started speaking to my fans” but also as “the place where I survived.” That narrative of survival, of walking through the fire only to emerge stronger on the other side,...

Producer and financier Anton, whose credits include “Greenland,” “His Dark Materials” and “The Night House,” has announced that its latest production, the feature film “Curs>R,” has wrapped principal photography in the U.K. A dark twist on the ‘80s gaming obsession, the horror thriller stars Asa Butterfield, Iola Evans and Eddie Marsan.

Anton will oversee world sales and introduce the project to buyers at the upcoming Cannes virtual market later this month, in association with Endeavor Content, which is co-representing the U.S.

The film also features horror maestro Robert Englund, who played Freddy Krueger in “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” Rounding out the cast is Angela Griffin, Kate Fleetwood, Ryan Gage,” and Joe Bolland (“The Trial of Christine Keeler”).

In pursuit of an unclaimed $125,000 prize, a broke college dropout (Evans) decides to play an obscure, 1980s survival computer game. But the game curses her, and she’s faced...

It’s a new year and everyone wants to put the vile cesspool that was 2020 behind them. Thankfully, HBO Max is coming out swinging to make the transition out of the hellyear even easier. HBO Max’s list of new releases for January 2021 is positively packed with notable film releases and even a fun HBO Max Original or two.

For starters, Search Party season 4 will arrive to HBO Max on Jan. 14. This season of the show with a now-surprising lifespan finds Dory Sief in the thrall of a deranged stalker…right after getting off on murder charges. These Brooklynites lead such fascinating lives! The other major original or note is the HBO documentary Tiger, that premieres on Jan. 10 and will delve into the complicated history of golfing legend Tiger Woods.

The real story this month, however, are the movies. Perhaps emboldened by its success with Wonder Woman 1984, HBO Max is...

Another year, and another daunting challenge to keep up with the number of streaming options available from the big online players. And to mark January 1st, there’s some new content to enjoy on the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max, among others, as well as several notable changes in licensing agreements that may affect how you can watch your favorite shows.

On Netflix, the biggest fresh release is the third season of Cobra Kai, which has been a hit for the service since making the move from YouTube. Critics are already dishing out praise for the latest block of episodes of The Karate Kid spinoff, which had its premiere date bumped up by a week. Other highlights, meanwhile, include Netflix documentary The Minimalists: Less Is Now, and a lot of licensed movies ranging from Bonnie and Clyde to Goodfellas.

By comparison, Disney+ have regained their rights to The Wolverine,...

So long, 2020, 2021 is here! Now that we’ve entered the New Year, the various major streaming services are starting January with a bang as they all have hefty hauls arriving this weekend. The first day of the month always sees a load of newly licensed titles go up across the platforms and that’s especially the case in January, as Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu and Prime Video have tons of great new movies and TV shows debuting this weekend.

For starters, there’s something for all tastes becoming available on Netflix on January 1st. We’ve got Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, animated comedy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, both Sex in the City movies, Superbad, Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon, horror flick Gothika and not one but two films directed by Martin Scorsese, Goodfellas and The Departed, featuring DiCaprio again.

Ring in the new year with a heap of new titles on HBO Max.

While production on “Euphoria” remains halted amid the Covid-19 pandemic, fans who have been clamoring for Season 2 can rest easy with the second of HBO’s two special episodes, the first of which released on Dec. 6. The second, titled “Fuck Anyone Who’s Not a Sea Blob,” will focus on Jules (Hunter Schafer) and premiere Jan. 24.

The fourth season of acclaimed HBO Max original dark comedy “Search Party” will debut Jan. 14. The series follows four self-absorbed post-grads who become entangled in a mystery when a former college acquaintance disappears. Season 4 picks up as Dory (Alia Shawkat) is held prisoner by her stalker Chip (Cole Escola), awaiting her friends Portia (Meredith Hagner), Elliott (John Early) and Drew (John Reynolds) to connect the dots and save her.

And if you’re looking to revisit your childhood, HBO Max...

A new year is just around the corner and as folks start getting ready to say goodbye to the nightmare that was 2020, it’s time to look ahead at all the great movies and TV shows coming down the pipeline to keep us entertained over the next 12 months.

Hopes are high that things will begin to return to normal again and productions will be able to run smoother, meaning less delays and setbacks. And with 2021 absolutely packed with new releases right now, there’s more than enough to get excited about no matter where your interests lie.

But aside from just what’s coming to theaters and airing on television, we’ve also got all the streaming services still offering up a bevy of fresh content every month and January is no different. Indeed, the first few weeks of the new year will see Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu...