There's just no stopping Scarlett Johansson right about now. Star of this summer's blockbuster behemoth Jurassic World: Rebirth, director of 2025 festival circuit darling Eleanor The Great, and soon-to-be lead of Mike Flanagan's upcoming The Exorcist movie, the two-time Oscar nominee is on a hot streak as her career enters its fourth decade. And now, per Deadline's reporting, it looks like the time may have come for the former Avenger to answer the Bat signal's call. Yes, ScarJo is in talks for Matt Reeves' The Batman Part II over at DC Studios.

According to Deadline, it's unknown exactly where things are at dealmaking-wise between Johansson and DC Studios' top brass at this stage,...

Vin Diesel will write and star in the “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots” movie for Mattel Studios, Variety has confirmed.

It was previously announced that the “Fast and Furious” star would star in the movie based on the classic tabletop boxing game, but now Diesel will pen the script. He will also produce with his production banner One Race Films.

Not much else is known about the film, but it will “bring the legendary Red Rocker and Blue Bomber to life in an all-new live-action adventure.”

“I am excited to expand the Mattel universe by bringing this classic toy from my childhood to a modern audience by telling a story that examines the role of competition in a world often measured by strength and dominance that dares to reveal the power of compassion at its core,” Diesel said in a statement.

“Vin is a powerhouse storyteller with an unmatched understanding of action,...

Boots Riley’s second film, a science fiction comedy called “I Love Boosters,” will have its world premiere on the opening night of South by Southwest’s 2026 Film & TV Festival.

The official logline for the film, which is distributed by Neon, reads, “A crew of professional shoplifters take aim at a cutthroat fashion maven. It’s like community service.” The cast includes Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, Poppy Liu, Eiza Gonzalez, Lakeith Stanfield, Don Cheadle and Demi Moore.

The SXSW opening isn’t a surprising move for Riley, whose film career kicked off in 2018 when his debut feature “Sorry to Bother You” premiered at the Austin festival. He returned in 2023 with the premiere of his Amazon Prime Video series “I’m a Virgo.” Before his work on screen, Riley was best known for his music — rapping with the groups The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club — as well as his leftist activism.

The Beatles’ world is starting to get filled in.

“The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event,” directed by Sam Mendes and headed to theaters in 2028, has cast some supporting characters alongside John Lennon (Harris Dickinson), Paul McCartney (Paul Mescal), George Harrison (Joseph Quinn) and Ringo Starr (Barry Keoghan).

David Morrissey will play Paul McCartney’s father Jim McCartney, Leanne Best will play John Lennon’s Aunt Mimi, James Norton will portray influential manager Brian Epstein, Harry Lloyd will appear as longtime music producer George Martin, Bobby Schofield will play road manager and trusted confidant Neil Aspinall, Daniel Hoffmann-Gill will be roadie Mal Evans, Arthur Darvill will portray press officer/friend Derek Taylor...

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

The DC Extended Universe, aka the Dceu, aka the Snyderverse, may be a thing of the past, but it's still popular in 2025. At least in the world of streaming, anyhow. 2023's "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" brought the Dceu as we knew it to an end. Warner Bros. has since rebooted the DC Universe under the guidance of DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran. However, Jason Momoa's second and final solo "Aquaman" movie is now finding love on Netflix two years after it hit theaters.

In the final week of November, director James Wan's "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom...

Chicago’s Music Box Theatre has plans to add a new 100-seat third screen at its Southport Avenue location and acquire the Heights Theater in Minneapolis, Minn., in 2026.

The Music Box’s longtime owner-operators, Brody Sheldon and the Schopf Family, will partner with Ryan Oestreich to oversee the transition of the theatre.

Under the new ownership, Heights Theater will close for a short period of time after its annual New Year’s Day screening of “Holiday Inn.” It will reopen on Jan. 9, 2026, with Jim Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother,” additional classic repertory titles and new programming curated by the Music Box team.

The traditions that will remain at Heights Theater include “White Christmas” screenings, “Holiday Inn” on New Year’s Day, the Celebration of Cinema festival and partnerships with Trylon Cinema.

New additions will feature late-night screenings on Friday and Saturday night, kids’ Saturday morning cinema and a revitalized...

Honorary awards for Michael Caine, Juliette Binoche, and filmmakers Stanley Tong and Rachid Bouchareb kicked off the fifth edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival last night.

“I’m so happy to be here,” said 92-year-old Caine on stage at the ceremony. Caine had been wheeled onto the red carpet by US star Vin Diesel, who later presented him with his award.

“I’ve seen it on television but never won anything here,” added Caine. “I want to thank you for the surprise. In show business, you don’t get many surprises, you get a couple of shocks,...

Screenis running this regularly updated page with the latest film festival and market dates from across the world.

To submit details of or alter your festival dates, pleasecontact us herewith the name, dates, country and website for the event.

Ongoing

French Film Festival, UK - November 6-December 11

Leeds Palestinian Film Festival, UK - November 21-December 6

Singapore International Film Festival, Singapore - November 26-December 7

African Diaspora International Film Festival, US - November 28-December 14

Marrakech International Film Festival, Morocco - November 28-December 6

Jogja-netpac Asian Film Festival, Indonesia - November 29-December 6

Asia TV Forum & Market, Singapore - December 2-5

Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival,...

The trailer for “Sholay: The Final Cut” has been unveiled, previewing the Dec. 12, 2025 worldwide theatrical release of India’s most celebrated blockbuster in its 50th anniversary year.

For the first time, audiences will experience the original uncut version of Ramesh Sippy’s 1975 epic, restored in 4K with Dolby 5.1 sound. The trailer employs the tagline “The Greatest Story Never Told,” a play on the film’s reputation as Indian cinema’s greatest achievement, since general audiences have never seen this complete, uncut version.

The story follows former police officer Thakur Baldev Singh, who enlists two small-time rogues — the charismatic Veeru and introspective Jai — to capture the notorious dacoit Gabbar Singh, who terrorizes the village of Ramgarh.

The preview showcases the iconic partnership of Jai and Veeru, played by Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra, alongside Sanjeev Kumar’s emotional gravitas as Thakur, Hema Malini’s charming Basanti, Jaya Bachchan’s quietly powerful Radha,...

Resplendent in costume and production design, but shaky in overall execution, the star-studded fantasy romance “100 Nights of Hero” is the second feature from writer-director Julia Jackman. Based on the graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg, it takes its cues from “One Thousand and One Nights” (or “The Arabian Nights”) of West Asian folklore, responsible for such cultural mainstays as Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. However, in Jackman’s movie, these narrative layers aren’t nearly as fantastical as their forebears from the Islamic Golden Age. They serve as thinly veiled extensions for their fictitious storyteller: a Scheherazade stand-in, whose queer reimagining works far better in theory than in practice.

The film initially features a mischievous spark, as Felicity Jones narrates the meta-textual origins of the subsequent story. A child with godlike powers, referred to as “kiddo” (Safia Oakley-Green) defies her carnivalesque father, “Birdman” (Richard E. Grant) by creating the world and its human inhabitants.

Netflix has entered exclusive talks with Warner Bros. Discovery to acquire the company’s film and television studio, as well as the HBO Max streaming service, Variety confirms.

The development comes after a weeks-long bidding war for the assets at Warner Bros. Discovery between Netflix and rivals Paramount Skydance and Comcast. Paramount Skydance, under the newly minted studio CEO David Ellison, had sought to acquire the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery in an all-cash deal, while both Netflix and Comcast only submitted bids for the company’s studio and streaming businesses. News of the exclusive window was first reported by Bloomberg News.

The move marks a shocking turnaround for Netflix, which for years has resisted opportunities to make a big bet on traditional Hollywood assets. Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, Netflix’s co-CEOs, have long asserted that the company’s growth was not hampered by the lack of a deep content library.

Acclaimed Bangladeshi director Rubaiyat Hossain, known for her powerful women-centric films, has completed principal photography in Dhaka on her feminist supernatural drama “The Difficult Bride,” unveiling a cast led by three Bangladesh National Film Award winners.

The production brings together Rikita Nondine Shimu (Venice selection “Once Upon a Time in Calcutta”), Azmeri Haque Badhon (Asia Pacific Screen Awards best actress winner for Cannes selection “Rehana”) and Sunehrah Binte Kamal (“No Dorai”). They’re joined by Zaineen Karim Chowdhury, a Smith College graduate making her lead acting debut after previously serving as an assistant director.

The narrative follows Zai, a bride-to-be in present-day Dhaka who is in love with her groom and dreams of a fairytale wedding, but secretly struggles with her body’s resistance to wedding rituals. As stress and emotional pain intensify, a mysterious woman with long hair begins appearing in Zai’s imagination.

“These actors made me feel...

At the 7th Hainan Island International Film Festival in China, jury president Marco Müller urged audiences and industry to rethink the event’s place on the calendar, arguing that its slot between AFM and Berlin gives Hainan a unique chance to premiere the films that will define the coming year – not recap the one that’s ending.

Festival jurors acknowledged the challenges facing a young festival in an already overcrowded global film schedule. Speaking at a press conference introducing the festival jury, Müller, jury president for Hiiff’s Golden Coconut Award, attempted to redefine the festival’s schedule, late in the year, as its greatest strategic asset.

Rather than presenting a summary of the current year’s films, Müller argued that the Hiiff could be a platform that introduces groundbreaking films for the year ahead.

“The timing is particularly important,” Müller stated, noting the festival’s placement, sandwiched between AFM in November,...

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who played evil sorcerer Shang Tsung in the “Mortal Kombat” franchise and appeared in “The Last Emperor,” “Licence to Kill” and “The Man in the High Castle,” died Thursday in Santa Barbara. A rep confirmed he died of complications from a stroke. He was 75.

Tagawa’s first film role came in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor.” Soon after that, Tagawa played the villian Kwang in James Bond movie “Licence to Kill.”

On TV, he had a recurring role on “Nash Bridges” and guest spots on dozens of series including “Miami Vice,” “Knots Landing,” “Moonlighting” and “Baywatch.”

Kagawa is known for his role as Shang Tsung in the “Mortal Kombat” franchise. He appeared in the first film adaptation in 1995 and went on to appear in the TV series “Mortal Kombat: Legacy” in 2013 and lent his voice to the more recent “Mortal Kombat 11” videogame.

His manager, Margie Weiner, said,...

If there's anything more deadly than a raging inferno it's surely the "Chicago Fire" writers, who are even more merciless than Taylor Sheridan when it comes to offing characters without a second thought. Lauren German's Leslie Shay is just one example. The paramedic was seemingly an indispensable member of the Firehouse 51 team, but was killed off at the end of season 2. Why? Simply because the writers wanted to shock viewers with a big death and Shay fit the bill.

A main character in season 1 and 2, Shay worked with Gabriela Dawson (Monica Raymund — who left the show after season 6) and lived with Kelly Severide (Taylor Kinney). Though she had an...

Filmmaker Matt Reeves added his voice to the wave of praise for Paul Dano — an outpouring that was prompted by Quentin Tarantino dissing Dano as “the weakest fucking actor in SAG.”

“Paul Dano is an incredible actor, and an incredible person,” Reeves wrote on social media Thursday afternoon. The director worked with Dano on “The Batman,” in which the actor took on the role of the villainous Riddler and faced off against Robert Pattinson’s Caped Crusader.

Tarantino made his comments about Dano in an appearance on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast, in which the filmmaker named his 20 favorite movies of the 21st century. But Tarantino upstaged his own taste a bit when discussing his fifth-place selection, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood,” arguing that the film would be his first or second pick “if it didn’t have a big, giant flaw in it… and the flaw is Paul Dano.

Most film fans of a certain age and younger have grown up with an abundance of riches when it comes to watching cinema. Not only have we enjoyed the ability to watch nearly any movie we want to on demand, but we also have the option to dive deeper into our favorite films and filmmakers. This ability, which began with the laserdisc and continued into the DVD and now the Blu-Ray, also gave filmmakers greater opportunities to present their films. Where once the theatrical release of a movie was the rigid endpoint of a film's lifespan, physical media afforded the opportunity for directors to release alternative versions of their movies.

TIFF: The Market has pulled back the lid a little further on its inaugural event as organisers said more than 250 international buyers are being invited to attend “in addition to the 800 buyers who attend TIFF annually”.

At time of writing, Screen was awaiting confirmation that the market is paying for or helping the new cohort of distributors with travel and/or accommodation and badge costs.

TIFF: The Market is backed by a Usd $16.9m (C$23m) investment from the Canadian federal government and supported by Telefilm Canada.

Organisers said there will be 650 market screening slots at “premium screens” including TIFF Lightbox and Scotiabank.

TIFF: The Market has pulled back the lid a little further on its inaugural event as organisers said more than 250 international buyers are being invited to attend “in addition to the 800 buyers who attend TIFF annually”.

At time of writing, Screen was awaiting confirmation that the market is paying for or helping the new cohort of distributors with travel and/or accommodation and badge costs.

TIFF: The Market is backed by a Usd $16.9m (C$23m) investment from the Canadian federal government and supported by Telefilm Canada.

Organisers said there will be 650 market screening slots at “premium screens” including TIFF Lightbox and Scotiabank.

A consortium of top industry players have sent an open letter full of alarm to Congress, describing a potential economic and institutional meltdown in Hollywood if Netflix succeeds in its effort to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

The letter was sent via email to members of Congress from both parties on Thursday, from an anonymous collective identifying themselves only as “concerned feature film producers.” The group explained it was leaving the letter unsigned “not out of cowardice” but fear of retaliation, given Netflix’s considerable power as a buyer and distributor. Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment.

One well-placed source confirmed to Variety that the group includes a number of prominent filmmakers.

The communication outlines three areas of great concern, including that Netflix could stand to “destroy” the theatrical film marketplace by escalating or eliminating the amount of time Warner Bros. films would play in theaters before hitting a combined Netflix-hbo Max streaming platform.

Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams” follows the Joel Edgerton as Robert Grainier, a logger and railroad worker living in the Pacific NorthWest.

Set in the late 1960s, “Train Dreams” is directed by “Sing Sing” co-writer Clint Bentley who called on Adolpho Veloso to be the film’s cinematographer.

The images are lush. The tall green trees pop against the clear blue sky, until a wildfire ravages the forest and changes Grainger’s life. Suddenly, the palette is ash and grey reflecting the aftermath.

Veloso’s imagery is one that lingers long after the film credits have rolled. In one scene, it’s a grand moment, as the tall trees get sawed down all in the name of progress.

Veloso sat down with Variety for Inside the Frame and said, “For 99% of the movie, we used natural light.”

With Bentley shooting in real-life locations, the idea was to simulate the audience...

“Endless Cookie” begins with an account of how the film began production, which is not a particularly interesting story: half-brothers Seth and Pete Scriver received a grant for funding they needed to direct an animated project together, and Seth flew from Toronto to Pete’s home in the remote First Nations community of Shamattawa to brainstorm on the stories they wanted the film to incorporate.

What makes the opening few minutes captivating is how this is all presented. The representative of Nfg Canada that provided the grant is depicted as a bent ruler. Seth’s wife has an onion head, and he himself is a pale, flabby, blue-nosed figure that only vaguely resembles the contours of a real human being. When he calls his brother to break the news, the film zooms out to a map of North America with a sleeping face stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

Who knew the end of the world could be so life-affirming? And who would have guessed that a Stephen King short story adapted by fellow Master of Horror Mike Flanagan would result in the feel-good movie of the year?

The challenge with talking about “The Life of Chuck” is that it’s a film that should be discovered — the less you know going in, the better. Which made it challenging to market. Is it a drama? A musical? A romance? A coming-of-age story? A movie that does nothing less than ask about the meaning of life? Well, yes.

The film is broken into three acts, told in reverse chronology. The first act finds the world crumbling due to an unspecified apocalyptic event. The internet is down, there’s no television — and yet mysterious billboards and commercials thanking someone named Charles “Chuck” Krantz begin popping up everywhere. In the second act,...

The newest trailer for "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" just dropped, and it looks ... funny?!

That's right: The second major spin-off and prequel of "Game of Thrones" has jokes in it, which is a little bit surprising. Yes, the original series, which is based on George R.R. Martin's novel series "A Song of Ice and Fire," had some jokes courtesy of characters like Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), but overall, it was fairly dour. "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," on the other hands, appears to be leaning into a more light-hearted approach.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Based on the novellas also written by Martin affectionately known...

‘Tis the season — for the Pope of Trash’s list of the top 10 films of the year.

As usual, director John Waters has published his picks for the best movies from the past 12 months (via Vulture), right in time for the holidays — with Ari Aster’s Covid-era Western, “Eddington,” taking this year’s top spot.

“My favorite movie of the year is a disagreeable but highly entertaining tale as exhausting as today’s politics with characters nobody could possibly root for. Yet it’s so terrifyingly funny, so confusingly chaste and kinky that you’ll feel coo-coo crazy and oh-so-cultural after watching,” Waters wrote as his reasoning for listing the feature — which pits Joaquin Phoenix against Pedro Pascal in a small town mayoral race — at #1. “If you don’t like this film, I hate you.”

It’s no surprise that Waters is throwing down the gauntlet on behalf of Aster’s latest work,...

Timothée Chalamet joined Lucid Motors for a speed-round interview and got asked to name the greatest actors of all time. The “Call Me By Your Name” and “A Complete Unknown” Oscar nominee answered: “Denzel’s the Goat, Christian Bale’s the Second Goat and Joaquin’s the Strange Goat.” Chalamet starred with Bale in the 2017 Western drama “Hostiles.”

When asked who is the best person to get a text from, Chalamet’s answer was another iconic actor: Leonardo DiCaprio. The “One Battle After Another” star actually texted Chalamet shortly before he did the video interview.

“He fried me today. He said, ‘I heard you shaved your head. Say it ain’t so,'” Chalamet said of DiCaprio’s text about his viral haircut, which presumably was done for his return as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part 3.”

Chalamet counts DiCaprio has one of his Hollywood mentors. The two...

There has been near unanimity among buyers and sellers engaging on sales titles and works-in-progress at the 17th edition of Ventana Sur in Buenos Aires – they want to be entertained.

“Buyers are looking for fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, action, high-end productions or films with recognised auteurs,” Antonio Saura of Latido said ahead of the market’s final day on Friday (December 5). “What they’re not looking for is drama.”

Saura has been selling Uruguayan filmmaker Gustavo Hernández’s (The Silent House) The Whisper as part of a genre-packed catalogue that includes Homo Argentum, a hit comedy starring Guillermo Francella from...

American Film Institute (AFI) has named the Warner Bros pair One Battle After Another and Sinners on its list of the top 10 films of 2025 alongside Focus Features’ Hamnet and Bugonia, and A24’s Marty Supreme.

Rounding out the film list are Disney/20th Century Studios’ Avatar: Fire And Ash, Universal’s Wicked: For Good, and the Netflix trio Train Dreams, Frankenstein, and Jay Kelly.

AFI’s top 10 television shows of 2025 include Emmy winners Adolescence at Netflix, Apple TV’s The Studio and Severance, and HBO Max’s The Pitt.

The institution will celebrate the winners at a private lunch in...

“I did some research and found that there are some actual cyborgs walking around on Earth right now,” actor Babou Ceesay said of preparing to play the cyborg Morrow on FX’s “Alien: Earth.” The show is set in 2120, but Ceesay pointed out that there are some people right now, in real life, who have embraced cybernetic enhancements to transcend the limitations of humanity.

“The one that stuck with me was Neil Harbisson,” Ceesay said. “He’s a colorblind artist and he’s got a thing attached to the base of his collar — comes out the front — and through vibration and sound, he’s able to tell [how] the color of things [is] useful for an artist.”

Tying Harbisson’s so-called “eyeborg” into his “Alien: Earth” character, who is turned into a cyborg after being rescued from the streets by the mysterious head of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Ceesay added, “He made a...

It’s time to break out those shades. Sony Pictures has tapped Chris Bremner, the writer of “Bad Boys For Life” and “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” to draft a script for a fifth film in the “Men in Black” franchise.

It’s unclear if Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones will return as Agent J and Agent K, the two alien-hunting operatives who anchored three of the four previous films. However, Bremner’s involvement could prove enticing for Smith, who did star in the two “Bad Boys” films that he wrote. Sony previously tried to reboot the series with 2019’s “Men in Black: International,” bringing in Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson as new agents, but the film was a financial disappointment, grossing $253.9 million on a budget of more than $100 million. But Sony clearly thinks the property still has value. Collectively, the films have grossed more than $1.9 billion.

Bremner also wrote “The Man From Toronto,...

This summer, head back to camp. “Camp Rock 3,” featuring the return of the Jonas Brothers as Connect 3, will be streaming on Disney+ and Disney Channel this summer, the studio announced on Thursday. Plsu, a new teaser introduced a new generation of campers.

“Music, friendship, memories,” Nick Jonas says in the teaser. “We’re back, exactly where we’re supposed to be,” Joe Jonas adds. Kevin Jonas replies, “Still no birdhouse.”

“The story picks up when Connect 3 loses their opening act for a major reunion tour, returning to their beloved Camp Rock to discover the next big thing. As campers vie for the chance to open for their favorite band, tensions rise, and friendships are tested, leading to unexpected alliances, revelations and romances,” the official synopsis reads. “​Camp Rock’s all-new campers include bold and determined Sage (Segura) and her easygoing brother Desi (Hudson Stone), camp bad boy Fletch (Malachi Barton...

I grew up a "Star Trek" fan, and I grew up a Lego fan. But as I grew older, and my time for hobbies grew more in-demand, one slipped away, and the other attached to my core with a death grip that would never truly let go. The LEGOs fell by the wayside, while I continued (and continue) to be a loud advocate for the greatest genre franchise ever created. Sorry "Star Wars" and everyone else.

So, when it was announced that Lego would be releasing its first-ever "Star Trek" set, and that it would be a massive recreation of the Enterprise-d from "Star Trek: The Next Generation", I saw an opportunity.

Margot Robbie is defending Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” against a handful of pre-release controversies. Speaking to British Vogue for a new cover story, the Oscar nominee stood by Fennell’s decision to cast Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the roles of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, respectively.

Based on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel “Wuthering Heights,” Fennell’s film adaptation started courting controversy the minute her casting choices were announced. Catherine is brunette and a teenager in the novel. Robbie is blonde and 35 years old. Fennell confirmed to British Vogue that she aged up Catherine for the movie to be in her late 20s and early 30s.

“I get it,” Robbie said about the backlash over the film’s casting. “There’s nothing else to go off at this point until people see the movie.”

Elordi’s casting as Heathcliff drew even more outrage online since the character is described as “dark-skinned” in Brontë’s novel.

David Matalon, who was a co-founder of TriStar Pictures and led Regency Enterprises for 12 years, has died at his Beverly Hills home of natural causes. He was 82.

Matalon was born on July 5, 1943, and began his career at Columbia Pictures International, rising to the position of EVP before departing to co-found and serve as president of TriStar Pictures.

He went on to lead day-to-day operations at Regency and built it into one of Hollywood’s biggest independent producers with credits spanning L.A. Confidential,Heat, Fight Club, and Unfaithful to The Fountain, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

During Matalon’s tenure at Regency,...

Last year, when Sean Baker’s “Anora” won both the Palme d’Or at Cannes — followed by best picture at the Oscars — those honors reinforced what Variety had been saying a decade earlier, when the filmmaker appeared on the publication’s 10 Directors to Watch list, before “Tangerine” had even premiered at Sundance. The same goes for Chloé Zhao, winner of the audience prize at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival for “Hamnet,” who was selected for her earlier film “The Rider.”

Those names join the likes of Christopher Nolan, Coralie Fargeat, Jonathan Glazer, Ruben Östlund, Wes Anderson, Alfonso Cuarón, Steve McQueen and Benh Zeitlin, who were all named “directors to watch” by Variety far in advance of being nominated for best director at the Academy Awards. Not that the distinction is reserved only for awards contenders. The aim is to represent the incredible range of up-and-coming talent in all respects,...

Starz's "Spartacus" is a wild and bloody ride about enslaved gladiators who lead an uprising against their Roman overlords. Starring Andy Whitfield (season 1) and Liam McIntyre (seasons 2 and 3) as the titular warrior, "Spartacus" is also, quite possibly, the horniest historical drama of the 21st century, as well as one of the most violent. Throw in some high-stakes drama and thrilling action and... what's not to love? Sadly, the original series was quite short-lived, but the good news is that the journey isn't over yet. "Spartacus: House of Ashur" is almost upon us, so you should brace yourself for even more carnage and coitus.

"Spartacus: House of Ashur" is essentially the...

“Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme” and a powerful one-two punch from Warner Bros. — “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” — are among the American Film Institute’s 10 best films of the year, the organization announced Thursday. On the television side, HBO Max’s “The Pitt,” Netflix’s “Adolescence” and Apple TV’s “Severance” and “The Studio” were included among AFI’s top programs.

The film selections reflect a robust and varied year in cinema, blending box office heavyweights with formally ambitious works. The lineup spans indie auteurs such as Chloé Zhao with “Hamnet” and Clint Bentley with “Train Dreams”; industry veterans like Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After Another”) and Guillermo del Toro (“Frankenstein”); filmmakers hitting new creative heights, including Noah Baumbach (“Jay Kelly”) and Josh Safdie (“Marty Supreme”); stylish visionaries such as Ryan Coogler (“Sinners”) and Yorgos Lanthimos (“Bugonia”); and dependable studio mainstays like James Cameron (“Avatar: Fire and Ash”) and Jon M. Chu...

The World Series is done, and we’re still weeks away from Super Bowl Lx. But with awards season ready to play, the American Film Institute is once again reminding the industry and audience that film and TV are team sports. Announcing the 2025 AFI Awards honorees on Thursday, the Hollywood nonprofit doubled down on its signature “community without competition” ethos — celebrating big stories and the many names that brought them to life, unranked.

“It is AFI’s honor to celebrate these creative ensembles as one,” said AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale. “Together, they have proved the power of art in challenging times.”

This year’s honorees will gather on January 9, 2026, for the organization’s annual luncheon at the Four Seasons Los Angeles. The event will celebrate 21 projects, including the 10 best TV shows, 10 best films, and one special mention. As an awards body, AFI delivers across-the-board recognition for artists both...

The fifth edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival kicked off on Thursday with a glitzy red carpet for the Middle East premiere of Rowan Athale’s Sylvester-Stallone produced “Giant,” starring Egyptian-British actor Amir El Masry as iconic British-Yemeni featherweight “Prince” Naseem Hamed and Pierce Brosnan as his trainer.

Stars walking the carpet included Dakota Johnson, Uma Thurman, Ana de Armas, head of jury Sean Baker and jury members Riz Ahmed, Naomie Harris, Nadine Labaki and Olga Kurylenko, as well as Queen Latifah and Nina Dobrev, who engaged in-depth conversations on-stage at the festival earlier in the day. The carpet’s most momentous exchange, however, happened between Vin Diesel and Michael Caine. The “Fast and Furious” star, who received the festival’s Special Recognition Award in 2024, wheeled the legendary British actor onto the red carpet, where they warmly posed for the cameras.

Vin Diesel presents an Honoree Award...

With “Task,” creator Brad Ingelsby returns to Delaware County (Delco), Pennsylvania, where his previous hit HBO mini series, “Mare of Easttown,” was set.

“We used to joke in prep — there is a version where Mare (Kate Winslet) could roll through the back of the frame in any scene,” said “Task” production designer Keith P. Cunningham. “She’s right down the street, in one of the local police departments, and at some point the FBI task force could ultimately work with her.”

According to Cunningham, one of the many Ingelsby collaborators who worked on both series, despite the similarities in location, crime genre, and the creator’s distinctive voice, “Task” was a different mode of visual storytelling. Gone were the claustrophobic, overcast gray and blue vibes of “Mare;” “Task” moved outside of the domestic drama into the natural world, with a summer color palette and its own approach to cinematic storytelling...

Updated, December 4, 2025: The cast of “The Beatles — A Four Film Cinematic Event” is getting better all the time. Sony has announced that Sam Mendes’ four-part biopic has added a new wave of names to its cast, with familiar faces lining up to play many of The Beatles’ creative collaborators and business associates.

Harry Lloyd, a British TV and stage actor known to American audiences for his roles in “The Theory of Everything” and “Legion,” has joined the cast as influential producer George Martin, who aided The Beatles in many of their studio production innovations in the second half of their career. “Happy Valley” star James Norton will play Brian Epstein, the band’s manager who oversaw their rise from Liverpool bar band to the biggest musical act in history before dying at the age of 32.

Other notable additions include David Morrissey as Paul McCartney’s father Jim McCartney, Leanne Best...

“Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me”, “La Más Dulce,” and “Chapa 100” claimed the top postproduction and development prizes at this year’s Atlas Workshops, which ran from Nov. 30 – Dec. 5 as part of the Marrakech Film Festival.

Co-winner of the top award, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me” walked away with a €20,000 post-production grant. Directed by Asmae El Moudir, the film retraces the life of Fatimazahra, a young woman born with a rare genetic disorder that made exposure to sunlight deadly. She lived a parallel, nocturnal existence and founded a community known as the Children of the Moon. Following her death in 2023, the group traveled to Norway’s Lofoten Islands to live beneath the polar night, seeking a world where darkness offers safety.

“We’re talking about a rare disease with a very strong antagonist: the sun,” says El Moudir. “What normally represents joy becomes a source of danger.

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2025 Venice Film Festival. Independent Film Company releases “100 Nights of Hero” in theaters starting December 5.

Stories shape us. They mold our morality, sculpt our vision of love, and chart the trajectories of our lives. For centuries, Western culture and its stories have fed us a narrow vision of the “happy ending.” From Shakespearean comedies to Disney fairy tales, the sign of a life well lived is so often a woman standing by a man, vowing to obey and sealed with wedding bells. That well-worn formula has provided comfort, but it has also upheld a system that stifles imagination and leaves little room for other visions of fulfillment.

Julia Jackman’s sophomore feature “100 Nights of Hero” is a luminous rebuttal to that tradition: a layered, playful, and poignant reminder that stories themselves can be acts of resistance.

Adapted from Isabel Greenberg’s award-winning graphic novel,...

Warner Bros Discovery (Wbd) lawyers have responded to a letter from Paramount that was leaked to the press in which David Ellison’s company expressed concern to the Wbd board over what it called a “myopic” bidding process with “a predetermined outcome that favors a single bidder”.

The letter from Paramount’s lawyers comes days after Wbd accepted second roundbids from Paramount, Netflix and Comcast for all of the company or parts of it.

An excerpt cited a report in the German outlet Handelsblatt noting that a Wbd delegation led by Wbd’s president of International Business Gerhard Zieler met with E.

On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, we hear from Brooke Zaugg, executive director of Faith & Media Initiative, on the coalition’s work to influence the portrayals of spirituality and people of faith in media and pop culture. And Variety’s Marc Malkin talks with Richard Gere about his new documentary on the Dalai Lama, “Wisdom of Happiness.”

“We’ve invested in a lot of research with a third-party expert to understand why it feels oftentimes like faith and spirituality has been portrayed negatively or kind of leaning on stereotypes. Is that actually true? And do people care? And what we found is that for many years it has been either absent or it’s been tropes and stereotypes that are sometimes true in religion, but oftentimes not reflective of the true lived experience of people of faith,” Zaugg says. “And we really wanted to become an advocate for...

The year is winding down, and lists of the best movies and shows of the year are getting locked down and published. Unfortunately, there are still movies that haven't been widely released that we believe are deserving of a spot on these lists — movies that have screened at festivals but haven't gotten distribution yet.

Such is the case for "We Are Storror," a documentary made by Michael Bay, who trades heavy visual effects and grand stories full of action for a rather intimate portrait of a group of friends who defy gravity and death with incredible parkour stunts that are so dangerous, Bay literally could not be anywhere near the set while filming was underway.

Graham McTavish is no stranger to wielding a sword on big and small screens. For more than two decades, McTavish has starred as a warrior in many popular franchises, from “Outlander” to “The Hobbit” and “House of the Dragon.” And now his warrior rises like a phoenix once again in “Spartacus: House of Ashur.”

McTavish sat down with IndieWire to discuss his most recent role, and what sets it apart from all the rest. The new “Spartacus” series is a sequel to the original “Spartacus,” and explores an alternate path where the gladiator Ashur did not die at the end of “Spartacus: Vengeance.” McTavish stars as Korris, alongside Nick Tarabay’s Ashur and Tenika Davis’ Achillia. He opens up about playing his first gay character, the intense gladiator workout regime, and why one intimacy coordinator was not enough on set. He runs through his best and worst memories from all of his projects,...

Freddy Fazbear and the gang are back. After 2023's "Five Nights at Freddy's" literally became Blumhouse's biggest movie ever, the studio wasted precisely no time when it came to ordering a sequel. Now, the time is upon us as "Five Nights at Freddy's 2" is making its way to theaters. Once again directed by Emma Tammi, this can be just another chapter in a much larger franchise. But does the sequel tee up more to come?

The first "Five Nights at Freddy's" featured a post-credits scene that helped deepen the lore, teasing things that could be explored in future installments. Given that this franchise features so many games, not to mention comics and novels,...

Footage Films’ thriller “Stepfather,” starring Taye Diggs and Tamar Braxton, has begun production in Los Angeles.

Diggs (“All American”) and Braxton (“The Braxtons”) headline the feature, with Chris Stokes directing and co-writing alongside Marques Houston. The duo also serve as executive producers.

Produced by Footage Films Studios, “Stepfather” is scheduled to premiere on Tubi in 2026.​

Diggs plays Darnell, a survivor of childhood abuse whose unresolved trauma turns into a twisted quest to recreate the perfect household he was once denied.

When Darnell’s new family doesn’t meet his ideal expectations, he takes charge by eliminating them to start the search again for his ideal family. Braxton plays his wife, Asia.

​The official logline for the film states, “After years of eradicating any family that falls short of perfection, Darnell ( Diggs) believes his new wife Asia (Braxton) and her daughters might finally be the real deal. That is, until tensions...

Hearts will be heavy at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival for at least three reasons: There’s the death of leader Robert Redford, the very recent passing of beloved communications chief Tammie Rosen, and the fact that this January will mark the festival’s last in Utah. It’s moving to Boulder, Colorado, for the January 2027 edition and for the forseeable future.

Those sea changes also suggest we could see more industry players, press, and talent descend upon Park City and Salt Lake than since Sundance’s pre-covid days. People want to be there for the last Utah edition, just as they’ll all want to be there for the first Colorado one. The festival headquarters is already anticipating strong attendance levels and pass sales for a festival that, from traffic jams to impossible restaurant reservations and competition with the local ski corps, has in many ways outgrown its flagship home.