I — like all millennials — root for no one more than I root for Lindsay Lohan. We were all there together, on the ground floor, as she perfected the “switch” comedy; first as twins Annie and Hallie in Nancy Meyers’ “The Parent Trap” remake, then later with Jamie Lee Curtis’ soul in the “Freaky Friday” remake, and when she cosplayed as a cool kid in “Mean Girls.” She grew up with us, and we stuck with her through the personal life rollercoaster. We got it, after all. We were all going through our own pitfalls — we just didn’t have the paparazzi snapping shots of life’s worst moments.

Even those of us who bemoan straight-to-streaming releases supported her Netflix comedy comebacks. The platform should know, too, that we 100% would’ve been there, lined up at the movie theater, to support both films with generous box office returns. The millennial generation does not agree on everything.

Werner Herzog's film "Rescue Dawn" (which hit U.S. theaters in the summer of 2007) was a semi-fictionalized retelling of his own 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly." The documentary followed Dieter Dengler, a German-American pilot whose plane was shot down during the Vietnam War, leading to his imprisonment and torture in a jungle-bound Pow camp. Herzog took Dengler back to Laos and Thailand to relive his experiences there. "Rescue Dawn" extends the re-creation into a full scripted drama. Dengler was played by Christian Bale, giving an intense and marvelous performance. Meanwhile, Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies co-star as American soldiers who've been captured alongside Dieter.

Herzog, always a stickler for authenticity, went back to Thailand to film in the locations where Dengler was lost and staged his escape. Notably, "Rescue Dawn" marked the first time Herzog ever used CGI in a movie, as he employed it to animate Dengler's initial plane crash.

The pilot episode of “The Studio” has perhaps its greatest cameo by a real-life Hollywood personality — none other than the auteur filmmaker himself, Martin Scorsese. In the extended guest appearance, the director is brought on to be the director for a “Kool-Aid” movie… although his version (a supposed passion project for the man behind “Raging Bull”) will actually be the story of Jim Jones’ notorious Jonestown massacre. He ends up getting fired, which offends Scorsese and every other major star in town, and at the end of the episode Seth Rogen and Ike Barinholtz’s studio mogul characters get kicked out of an exclusive Charlize Theron-hosted party.

Throwing Scorsese into a role that requires him to poke fun at his own persona, though, was a gamble — at least emotionally — for Rogen, who also co-wrote and co-directed the episode.

“It’s very weird,” Rogen told Variety. “The fact that he...

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Superheroes like Batman originate in comic books, where the only limits on their costumes are what the artist can imagine. A comic's pencillers, inkers, and colorists control everything, from the costume's contours to the way the lighting of a panel brings out its colors -- and all they need is pens and paper. 

Costume designers in superhero movies have the same task but deal with hurdles artists never do. "Batman" comics always depict the hero with white eyelids on his mask, while the movies leave Batman's eyes exposed so the actor can properly emote in the mask. You've also got to account for comfort, which means making the Batman mask's eyeholes big enough that some skin around the eyeholes is exposed. When Adam West played Batman, there was no attempt to hide that. In 1989's "Batman," though, Michael Keaton wore...

“Jurassic World Rebirth” keeps roaring at the box office with ticket sales clearing the $750 million milestone over the weekend.

Universal’s dinosaur tentpole, which rebooted the pre-historic series with Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and Mahershala Ali at the helm, has grossed $766 million globally after five weekends of release. It’s one of three Hollywood films this year — Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” ($1 billion) and Warner Bros. “A Minecraft Movie” ($955 million) are the other two — to clear the $750 million mark so far. International audiences have been particularly enthusiastic, with overseas revenues contributing a massive $448 million to the total bounty. United Kingdom and Ireland ($42 million), Mexico ($34 million) and Germany ($28 million) rank as the top-earning territories. Those are mighty returns, however the latest “Jurassic” has to keep climbing to near the heights of the prior sequel trilogy led by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, each of which grossed $1 billion globally.

“F1” is...

Public interest in which movie monsters get to thrive in the pop culture zeitgeist ebbs and flows, and that was especially the case in the late 2000s, when zombies were in vogue. AMC's small-screen adaptation of Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore's comic book "The Walking Dead" has since become a bloated corpse of its former self, roaming the airwaves with a whole bunch of spin-offs and not a lot of chatter about them. But in 2010, that first season was the talk of the town. The Walking Dead" was considered prestige, must-watch television back in 2010. About a year earlier, however, the subgenre received an unexpected boost from an unlikely horror comedy named "Zombieland."

Following in the footsteps of Edgar Wright's seminal zom-com "Shaun of the Dead," Ruben Fleischer's 2009 film took a lighter, yet still gory look at the zombie apocalypse through an eccentric cast of characters with hometown-based nicknames.

Updated: The dispute over Eros International’s AI-altered rerelease of “Raanjhanaa” expanded beyond the director-studio conflict when the film’s lead actor Dhanush issued a public statement Sunday expressing his opposition to the modified ending.

“The re-release of ‘Raanjhanaa’ with an AI-altered climax has completely disturbed me. This alternate ending has stripped the film of its very soul, and the concerned parties went ahead with it despite my clear objection,” Dhanush posted on X along with the comment “For the love of cinema.” “This is not the film I committed to 12 years ago. The use of AI to alter films or content is a deeply concerning precedent for both art and artists. It threatens the integrity of storytelling and the legacy of cinema. I sincerely hope that stricter regulations are put in place to prevent such practices in the future.”

The actor’s statement follows an escalating war of words...

The words "AMC" and "vampire" automatically conjure dizzying emotions about "Interview with the Vampire," which has been slated for an exciting third season (featuring Lestat in his rockstar era!) that will grace our screens very soon. AMC's riveting adaptation of Anne Rice's beloved novel series is so well-received and singular that every other vampire story propped up by the network automatically pales in comparison.

This is especially the case with subgenre stories that received mixed critical reception upon release, as these middling shows often end up being overshadowed or forgotten over time. While Jami O'Brien's "NOS4A2" (not to be confused with Robert Eggers' "Nosferatu") ran between 2019 and 2020, this adaptation of Joe Hill's novel (titled "Nos-4R2") hasn't been a part of serious vampire discourse for quite some time. But there's one thing about "NOS4A2" that cannot be overlooked: it manages to stand out in a hyper-saturated subgenre oozing with blood and gore.

2025's "War of the Worlds" has become a hit on Prime Video after debuting on July 30 and shooting straight to the top of the streamer's charts. Why? I don't know. But that's what happened and now we're in the position of having to parse this critically-panned sci-fi rehash to figure out what in the heck is going on.

You might think I'm being a tad harsh. After all, this movie did dominate the Prime Video charts. But wait until you hear about the actual content of this film, which takes place entirely on Ice Cube's desktop. That is, much like 2018's "Searching," which also unfolded entirely on computer screens, "War of the Worlds" is confined to the laptop of Mr. Cube's Homeland Security analyst Will Radford, who witnesses the invasion of Earth by alien creatures entirely via low-res videos and a network of surveillance cameras. This might sound like an interesting approach,...

It’s perhaps the comic book film genre’s greatest conundrum: how do you crack the Fantastic Four? This weekend, despite positive word of mouth and a solid opening weekend haul, the quartet’s latest — subtitled “First Steps” — tumbled 66% at the domestic box office. Undoubtedly, before Hollywood looks to craft the next adventure, they’ll look back at what has worked before — and the most recent unequivocal success came from the simply titled “Fantastic Four” in 2005, which featured Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Iaon Gruffudd.

Now, “unequivocal,” to be fair, does not count reviews — “First Steps” has most certainly outpaced this older version in terms of critical reception. But the film grossed three times its budget and managed to produce a sequel in 2007 — “Rise of the Silver Surfer” — which also made money. Of course, after that, Marvel Studios became a thing, and something called the MCU happened. But...

Did you hate the ending of "Game of Thrones?" You're not alone! Most fans, including myself, think that final season — and its series finale, "The Iron Throne" — was dreadful, rushed garbage, even if there are some defenders amongst my lovely colleagues here at /Film. Apparently, "the show's finale-haters can include Natalia Tena in our club.

Tena, who played the wildling Osha on the series until her character was violently killed off in the show's sixth season, told Kate Thornton on her podcast, "White Wine Question Time," in 2019 that she lost her patience with "Game of Thrones" partway through its final season and basically just flew into a rage after that. As Tena told Thornton, she was pretty much on board with the whole thing up until the episode where Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) saves humankind by slaying the Night King (Vladimir Furdyk), the event that marks the halfway point of that final season.

A good and memorable character needs a great name. Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Hercule Poirot, Duncan Idaho — even without knowing their reputation and impact, these names evoke a sense of importance and badassery. Similarly, Lee Child's Jack Reacher is a name that already evokes a certain image before one even reads the many, many, many ways Child describes his character's dinner plate-sized hands.

Sometimes, a name has some grand significance, a hidden meaning, or a homage to something else. Other times, an author can come up with a name due to a silly comment from a loved one. Speaking to January Magazine, Lee Child revealed his wife was the one to come up with the name "Reacher" while out shopping one day. It was when he decided to become a full-time novelist, during the writing of Child's first book, "Killing Floor." At this point, Child hadn't come up with...

Barcelona-born, England-trained Alberto Sciamma has forged his own path in features over the last three decades, attracted to oddball themes and genre mashups that often wound up more intriguing in description than execution. But after not quite landing the eccentric conceits of “Killer Tongue,” “Black Plague,” “Jericho Mansions,” “Bite” and “I Love My Mum,” he’s hit an unexpected home run in “Cielo,” a U.K. production shot on ___location in Bolivia.

The Spanish-language magical realist exercise about a young girl’s bizarre cross-country journey is like a kinder, gentler version of Jodorowsky’s fantastical narratives. While not lacking flaws, it offers considerable ambition, aesthetic beauty and bittersweet enchantment, with a surprisingly wide viewer appeal. It is at once this writer-director’s sweetest film and by far his most accomplished.

“Cielo” begins in a dismal desert outback with a series of shocks: First, a young girl catches a fish at a river bank,...

In David Hogan's 1996 sci-fi clunker "Barb Wire," Pamela Anderson (who was fresh off a star-making stint on "Baywatch" when she made the movie) plays Barb Kopetski, a stripper and bar-owner trying to survive in a then-near-future U.S. The year is 2017, and the United States is suffering through a second Civil War. Meanwhile, Barb runs the Hammerhead, a nightclub and adult performance venue in the only free city still left in the country. Barb dances on stage but tolerates no lasciviousness; she murders a patron with her spike-heeled shoe for the temerity of calling her "babe." Barb is uncaring, unconcerned with the war, and looks out only for herself. Oh, yes, and on the side, she makes money as a bounty hunter and freelance vigilante.

Her idyll is interrupted by the reappearance of Axel (Temuera Morrison), an old boyfriend whom she loved deeply but who abandoned her years earlier.

Stephen King has been honest over the years about the difficulties of being a writer, sharing his thoughts on the craft in his book "On Writing" and dropping plenty of anecdotes in interviews and online. There are lots of things that King does incredibly well, like develop complex and interesting characters or craft intense descriptions that evoke emotion in even the least imaginative reader, but sometimes he struggles a bit with the overall narrative and gets a little lost. Look, there's a reason why so many of King's books have wildly disappointing endings, and it's not because King is a bad writer. Far from it — he just occasionally gets a little too into the weeds for his own good.

One especially interesting background note on a King novel is that he apparently had a difficult time finishing the book "Christine," which is about a 1958 Plymouth Fury with supernatural qualities. In a 1984 interview with Lofficer,...

The path to enlightenment is a booby-trap-laden maze in “Transcending Dimensions,” which Japanese cult director Toshiaki Toyoda says may be his last feature. It can certainly be taken as a sort of summational statement, rounding up recurrent prior themes and motifs, though in ways constituting more of an advanced course than a handy introduction to his work. Even loyal fans may take occasional issue with a feature that’s by turns absurdist, philosophical, violent, wayward, satirical and baffling.

Still, the unpredictability and aesthetic appeal of Toyoda’s vision has its usual bracing effect. A precise point may be anyone’s guess, but getting there is a playful cosmic trip that justifies the lofty ad slogan “Enter the gate to the universe.” However, woe betide anyone expecting something so simply categorized as “science fiction” — though that is also how it’s being sold.

The deceptively tranquil opening finds a monk meditating in a cave,...

It's not news that "Cats" is a bad movie. Directed by Tom Hooper, the movie uses Andrew Lloyd Webber's inscrutable and mostly plotless Broadway musical as its source material, and to say it's jarring, bizarre, and outright terrible is an understatement. Also, Taylor Swift is in it.

Let me backtrack for a moment and say this: The Broadway musical "Cats" is not my personal cup of tea, but I'm not here to crap all over it. It's one of the highest-grossing musicals in history, and to be absolutely fair, the fact that the stage version is plotless isn't a technically bad thing. Making it into a movie, though, was a patently terrible idea, and I say that with no due respect to Hooper ... and unfortunately for Swift and her co-stars Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson, and, uh, James Corden, it's a part of their creative histories now.

Botched auditions in Hollywood — especially about beloved and extremely popular movies and TV shows — have become somewhat of an intriguing and sought-after lore over the years. So here's another one for those who can't get enough of them. "Outer Banks'" Madelyn Cline — who also popped up in the recent legacyquel of "I Know What You Did Last Summer," which we reviewed here — had the opportunity to appear alongside such acting legends as Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and Josh Brolin, but she royally messed it up due to inexperience and nerves. Of course, I'm talking about the Coen Brothers' 2010 western "True Grit" — the second and more faithful adaptation of Charles Portis's 1968 novel of the same name — that earned no less than 10 Oscar nominations 15 years ago (it's somewhat outrageous it didn't get to win any of them).

Given the amount and level of talent behind the production, anyone would've been overwhelmed...

John Gulager's 2005 goopy horror/comedy flick "Feast" was the resulting film wrought by season three of "Project Greenlight." For those unfamiliar with "Project Greenlight," it was a documentary series on HBO (previously on Bravo in 2005) overseen by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Each season, the two stars would host a screenwriting competition, seeking the best scripts they could find from amateur or unproven authors. The winner would then see their script made into a feature film. Sometimes the writer would direct their own film, sometimes a first-time filmmaker would be paired with the screenplay. "Project Greenlight" then followed the filmmaking process, from casting through final editing, detailing the way a low-budget film is made. The finished movies each got limited theatrical runs.

The idea behind "Project Greenlight" was to offer aspiring filmmakers their "big break," adding new voices to the filmmaking community. It's a neat idea, although the films...

This article contains spoilers for "Eyes of Wakanda."

Comic book movies and television shows are always grasping at the feeling of "epic" storytelling, but live-action budgets and precious runtime often thwart these plans before they can even get rolling. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a lot of massive fan-favorite moments occur because there's been a lot of build-up ahead of time. But, "Eyes of Wakanda" is the latest show from Marvel Animation that shows how the studio could be building toward a massive crossover moment without the burden of squaring that with the larger MCU. The last episode of the Marvel event series, titled "The Last Panther," sprinkles in more teases for a large-scale animation throwdown with an appearance from The Watcher during a crucial moment of the story.

"The Last Panther" introduces us to Prince Tafari and Kuda, who are on a mission to reclaim stolen vibranium artifacts. Of course,...

Marvel’s First Family might not save the day after all. “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is quickly losing steam in its second weekend, signaling the comic book adventure isn’t connecting at the box office beyond the film’s core demographic of superhero fans.

After a healthy $117.6 million debut, “The Fantastic Four” suffered a hefty 66% drop in its sophomore outing with $40 million from 4,125 theaters. Heading into the weekend, box office analysts anticipated a decline of 55% to 60% from its opening. This painful fall is surprising because the Marvel tentpole has the benefit of positive reviews and word-of-mouth, as well as a clear runway in terms of competition.

Although those ticket sales were enough to rank as No. 1 on North American charts, “The First Steps” endured one of the steeper second-weekend drops for Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, better than “The Marvels” (down 78%) but in the company of February’s “Captain America: Brave New World...

In the retrofuturist world of "The Fantastic Four: First Steps," Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby) navigates the complexities of motherhood while also acting as the glue that holds together the titular found family. While Sue's invisibility and light manipulation powers undoubtedly make her formidable, her compassionate drive to save the world is what ultimately helps turn the tide in the fight against a terrifying cosmic entity. Even before embodying Sue in the latest "Fantastic Four," Kirby played myriad roles that are equally intriguing and fierce, tempered with a depth that is intriguing to behold.

We have her vivacious interpretation of a young Princess Margaret in "The Crown" (for which Kirby won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress) and also her deeply moving turn in "Pieces of a Woman," which explores grief through a tragically bleak lens. There's also a slew of stage performances that are worth noting, coupled with appearances in bona fide blockbusters,...

“The Naked Gun,” for most younger folk was — if anything — a movie series that ran a lot on cable during the ’90s and ’00s. But for Gen Xers and Boomers, it was the ultimate spoof franchise, starring the king of deadpan Leslie Nielsen. But excitement has been building across all demographics for the this year’s reboot (evidenced in the film’s youth-heavy opening weekend numbers), as ad after ad has built upon action star Liam Neeson’s new, bumbling persona. And, in turn, audiences have revisited the original “Naked Gun” trilogy in preparation.

Neeson, however, is not to be counted among the rewatchers. In fact, the actor made a point of not revisiting the original films, which also starred Priscilla Presley (who you might just spot in the new movie) — though he did see them when they originally hit cinema screens.

“I just trusted the script,” Neeson told Variety.

Steven Spielberg and Liam Neeson worked together on the 1993 classic "Schindler's List" (seen above). The film tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who hopes to keep his factories open even as the Nazi party comes to power in Germany. He pays off Nazi officials to employ Jewish workers, effectively shielding them from the Nazi death camps. It takes him some time to realize that he's doing something heroic. He soon begins over-employing his factories, pointedly saving as many Jewish people as possible. At the end of the war, he is said to have saved about 1,200 people.

Neeson's performance was sensitive and tragic, and it earned the actor his only Oscar nomination to date. It seemed logical that Neeson and Spielberg should want to work together again at some point, but it took many years for the appropriate project to manifest. In 2005, it was reported by Variety that the project had been found.

In addition to writing novels and memoirs and starring in several of his own TV shows, Anthony Bourdain wrote for some high-class TV dramas. In 2011, he penned two scripts for Season 2 of the HBO show "Treme" and returned the following year to write two more episodes for Season 3. His contributions came as a surprise to a lot of Bourdain fans, as he hadn't published much of his fiction writing in over ten years at that point.

Making Bourdain's time on "Treme" more impressive is that this was a show run by David Simon, creator of the widely beloved "The Wire," meaning Bourdain held his own in a writer's room run by the guy who created perhaps the best show of the entire medium of TV so far. Like "The Wire," "Treme" was criminally undervalued while it was airing, with ratings much lower than they should be for a show of its caliber.

Three years after "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" was released in theaters, franchise co-creator George Lucas developed the ABC TV series, "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles." The '92 series went on for two seasons and four TV movies; it was considered a success and is still generally well-regarded by the hardcore "Indiana Jones" fans. The episodic format allowed young Indy to go through dozens of smaller adventures, constantly interacting with historical figures like Leo Tolstoy and John Ford.

One episode idea Lucas had for the show will sound familiar to modern fans: "One of the scripts we were working on was about a crystal skull. I became fascinated with it there," Lucas said in a 2007 interview. Although he was captivated by an Indiana Jones story where Jones looks for a crystal skull, the concept ultimately never made it into the series. On the bright side for Lucas, he was...

A new age of DC has arrived with James Gunn's "Superman," a charming crowd-pleaser that's silly in all the right ways. It's a refreshing change of pace to see David Corenswet's Man of Steel having a bit of fun after the oppressive slog that was Zack Snyder's series of films featuring Henry Cavill as Superman. Now, Warner Bros. and Gunn will be looking to build on the more light-hearted tone established with "Superman" as they build out their burgeoning DC Universe.

There are multiple elements that make Gunn's film much more fun than its predecessors, from Krypto the dog, who might just be the real star of "Superman," to the "Guardians of the Galaxy"-esque humor, which doesn't always work as well in "Superman" as it did in Gunn's beloved Marvel trilogy, but it certainly helps lighten things up. We also got an array of fantastical...

With enthusiastic reviews and smashing box office receipts, James Gunn's "Superman" has revived the DC Universe for a new generation of fans. His colorful, hope-punk take on the Man of Steel seems to have struck a chord with the majority of moviegoers interested in the future of this franchise. That isn't to say there aren't those missing the dark, epic melodrama of Zack Snyder's "Justice League" or the grounded thrills of Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy.

For fans in the latter camp, you're in luck. In addition to preserving films like Matt Reeves' distinct "Batman" films in their own Elseworlds continuity, Gunn has also shared that even the movies in his interconnected DC Cinematic Universe will vary wildly in terms of tone and content. There is no better example of how this dynamic will work than the comics themselves, where the mainstream stories of the DC Universe exist alongside the daring,...

This article contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" season 3, episode 4, "A Space Adventure Hour."

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is set in the 23rd century, so obviously it can't do a holodeck episode, right? Wrong!

"A Space Adventure Hour," directed by franchise veteran Jonathan "Will Riker" Frakes, drops LA'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) into a holodeck adventure right out of "The Next Generation." The set-up is that she's testing a prototype of the holodeck and decides to act in a story based on her childhood favorite "Amelia Moon" detective novels. LA'an casts herself as Amelia in a mid-20th century Hollywood murder mystery. Tony Hart, the studio head producing a soon-to-be-canceled sci-fi TV series, "The Last Frontier," has been murdered. "Amelia" must find who among the cast and crew of the show (with avatars modeled after the Enterprise crew) is the killer.

If "The Last Frontier" looks familiar, it should!

This article contains spoilers for "The Naked Gun."

In Nicole Kidman's version of the cinephile's pledge of allegiance, we come to movie theaters to laugh, to cry, and to care, yet we don't seem to be doing much of the first part. To be fair, there have been several great theatrical comedies released over the past five years like the screamingly funny slapstick epic "Hundreds of Beavers," but they've rarely come from major studios. There are, of course, exceptions like "Barbie" or the miniature success of "No Hard Feelings," but otherwise, recent studio comedies have gone underseen, been relegated to streaming, or simply not been made. A comedy like 2023's extremely funny "Joy Ride" simply isn't treated with the same fervor as a blockbuster action movie. But if there's one film this year that possesses the power to hopefully change that tide, it's "The Naked Gun."

Ethan Anderton's overwhelmingly...

Spoiler alert! This article has spoilers for season 3, episode 4 of "Foundation." Proceed with caution!

In the fourth episode of season 3 of Foundation, Brother Day (Lee Pace) starts to really rage against the machine — no, I mean literally. He lashes out in childishly petulant anger against Lady Demerzel's (Laura Birn) iron fist — again, literally iron. (The pair of imperial characters have a complicated relationship.) At one point, the disgruntled emperor confronts Demerzel right in her private quarters in the royal palace as she conducts robot maintenance on herself. She is headless when he walks in, and as she reattaches her top piece to her neck, Day complains about the complications of being human — clipping our nails, going to the bathroom — compared to a robot's flawless and clean upkeep.

Clearly, there is an undercurrent of tension in the conversation, and as it plays out, it's easy to miss a short phrase that Cleon uses at one point.

After almost 20 years in the industry, Alan Ritchson finally landed a role that propelled him into the public consciousness in a way that had eluded him over the previous two decades. The actor started out by playing Arthur Curry/Aquaman on "Smallville" back in 2006 and has been working solidly ever since. But playing formidable ex-military policeman Jack Reacher in Prime Video's hugely successful "Reacher" has really transformed the now-42-year-old's career, with Ritchson appearing in multiple high-profile movie projects ever since, including "Fast X" and "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare."

Along with all of his success, Ritchson has found himself being fancast as the next Batman — and when I say "found himself," I mean "actively encouraged the idea." The man has made no secret of his love for the Dark Knight, having publicly announced his eagerness to play the iconic role at several points over the past year or so.

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If we're to believe a certain delightfully deceptive Christopher Nolan film, the third act of any magic show is always the most shocking -- which should have us all excited for the imminent release of Lionsgate's "Now You See Me: Now You Don't." The third entry in the high-grossing "Now You See Me" series (which began in 2013 and continued with a sequel in 2016), the 2025 film is set to return viewers to this arrestingly glamorous world of vigilante illusionists.

For the uninitiated, the series follows the escapades of the Four Horsemen, a group of stage magicians who once managed to "magically" transport millions of stolen dollars from a secure bank vault in Paris to their audience in Las Vegas. They then began using their unique skills of misdirection, deception, manipulation, and stagecraft to execute elaborate heists against the wealthy for the benefit of common people.

The last couple of years have seen Marvel Studios embracing more and more "mature" content. The return of players from the Netflix Marvel shows like Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) has necessitated new spaces for those characters to fully stretch. That has, in turn, given rise to more Disney+ shows under the "Marvel Spotlight" banner carrying TV-ma ratings, allowing for a higher dose of violence and other "adult" material.

Still, that's far from the MCU norm, which is why I was a bit surprised to tune into the latest series from Marvel Animation, "Eyes of Wakanda," and find it as bloody and violent as it is. To be clear, this is still well below the line of something like "Daredevil: Born Again." The animated series isn't on the level with "Castlevania" or "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners" either, at least when it comes to taking advantage of the format to include gratuitous gore.

Taylor Sheridan has carved a very specific niche for himself at Paramount. He's the mastermind behind "Yellowstone" and its myriad spinoffs like "1883" and "1923," which remain some of the best shows in the creative's oeuvre. All of his other shows, like "Landman" and "Tulsa King," have a distinctly neo-western vibe to them, which has clearly resonated with audiences. But before he was a taste maker, Sheridan tried to make a living as an actor, something that was easier said than done. 

Sheridan still acts too. In fact, he had a supporting role as Travis Wheatley in "Yellowstone," but his bread and butter comes from behind the camera with his responsibilities as a writer, director, and producer. But acting used to be his main gig, showing up in episodes of "Walker, Texas Ranger," "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," and "Party of Five," to name a few. 

However, his worst project, according to reviews on IMDb,...

We watched a lot of war films in our household when I was a kid. My granddad served in the Royal Air Force in Africa during World War II, and my dad loved action movies, so we tended towards classics like "Ice Cold in Alex" and brawny men-on-a-mission adventures such as "The Great Escape," "Von Ryan's Express," and "The Dirty Dozen." Low on grit and high on derring-do, these flicks were rousing stuff that celebrated stiff upper lips and cool heads under fire, stirring up pride in our nation's part in victory over the Third Reich. My favorite was "Where Eagles Dare;" I was left absolutely breathless when I first saw it and it gave me all the things I wanted from a war movie back then: suspense, double-crosses, explosions, and plenty of Nazis getting what's coming to them. Plus it had cinema's greatest cable car scene and Clint Eastwood...

As the likes of All Elite Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment have become fully fledged entertainment brands, rather than just wrestling promotions, it's become more common to see the in-ring performers make the jump to Hollywood -- and no, not those awful movies like "The Chaperone," "The Marine 6: Close Quarters," or any of Hulk Hogan's questionable straight-to-video offerings. You only need to look at how Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns were cast in major roles as Guile and Akuma respectively in Kitao Sakurai's "Street Fighter" reboot movie. In the past, they may have been credited as Thug #1 and Thug #2 in some random action scene.

Considering how wacky the world of pro wrestling is, it's no surprise to see it cross over much more with comic book movies and TV shows. After all, pro wrestlers are simply superheroes in skimpier tights and with their own catchphrases -- and...

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

Fantasia International Film Festival, Canada - July 17-August 3

BlackStar Film Festival, US - July 31-August 3

The African Diaspora International Film Festival, US - August 1-3

Festival Of Cinema NYC, US - August 1-10

Martha’s Vineyard African-American Film Festival, US - August 1-9

Membrana Film Festival, UK - August 3

August

Greenpoint Film Festival, US - August 6-10

Locarno Film Festival,...

It's always a somewhat reassuring thing when the creators of a television show know how their story will end (or how they want it to end) right from the start. For any TV writer, it's a comforting thought to have a proper and, ideally, satisfying conclusion in mind that will bring a sense of closure to both their series' characters and viewers — not to mention, it also makes the writing process easier when you have an end point you can work towards.

However, many shows simply aren't lucky enough to see their plans through if, for whatever reason, their network or streaming service decides to cancel them earlier than expected. God knows that many excellent series have been prevented from saying a proper goodbye and having to wrap up their storylines the way they'd like to. Think of Paul Feig's quirky classic "Freaks and Geeks" or Gregory Thomas Garcia...

The writer-director’s debut film earned critical acclaim and Oscar nods for its portrayal of loves lost and rekindled. Her follow-up stars Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans in a romance about dating across the class divide

‘Our financial literacy is so fucked,” says Celine Song. We’re having breakfast in Manhattan on a sunny Saturday in early July, a few weeks after her new film, Materialists, has opened in New York City. She’s wearing a charmingly ironic outfit: a T-shirt that says “Howdy” and a baseball cap that says “Big” – but she speaks with almost disarming earnestness.

She’s frustrated, she tells me, that people have described one of the characters in her film, a private equity manager with a $12m apartment, as a “billionaire”. “If you’re a billionaire, your big apartment is not $12m!” she exclaims. “The average income of an American adult is $35,000. What...

"The Simpsons" has surely featured the best guest stars of any TV show in history. Some of that is simply by virtue of having run for a full 36 seasons, but in the early years especially, the show had so much cachet as a cultural force that big-name stars simply couldn't stay away. Though there is one type of guest star "The Simpsons" has yet to land, the long-running series has hosted everyone from A-list actors such as Michelle Pfeiffer to musical icons such as Johnny Cash.

As such, Richard Dean Anderson of "MacGyver" and "Stargate Sg-1" fame might not seem like the most notable guest appearance. But the actor's cameo on "The Simpsons" was about more than simply securing yet another celebrity to add to the long list of guest stars. As it happens, Anderson's "Sg-1" character, Colonel Jack O'Neill, is a big fan of the animated sitcom, to...

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

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

The respective worlds of Marvel Comics and DC Comics aren't always associated with magic and sorcery. Some of the biggest characters from either franchise run the gamut from otherworldly aliens (Marvel's Captain Marvel and DC's Superman), technologically-capable geniuses (Marvel's Iron Man and DC's Mister Terrific), and even just straight-up powerless vigilantes (Marvel's Daredevil and DC's Batman). However, both comic book giants also have plenty of characters whose powers are less super and more archaic.

These powerful individuals from both franchises include some of the strongest superheroes to ever grace the pages of a comic book, and cover a wide variety of magic types. There's those who are given their powers by a god or deity, those who master the ways of sorcery and witchcraft, and those who are just simply born with the latent ability to manipulate matter and bend the universe to their will. These are the 12 best magic-based...

Very few of Terry Gilliam's films have been produced without some kind of grievous production problem. Gilliam appears to be cursed, with his films victimized by studio tinkering, bad filming conditions, or the health of his actors. The saga of his "Brazil" is well known to cineastes, and his more recent "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" had to be made twice, after the first version of the film fell through. In 2009, Gilliam released "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," a melancholy nightmare about a mystical closet that travels around in the possession of the titular doctor (Christopher Plummer). Inside the closet is a mystical pocket dimension where surreal dreams are manifested. Dr. Parnassus heads a theater troupe and is immortal, having been tricked by Satan (Tom Waits). Into his company comes the handsome young Tony (Heath Ledger), who may offer salvation. At the very least, Tony offers to spruce...

"Stargate Sg-1" hosted an impressive array of guest stars over the course of its 10-season run. The show focused on a team of universe-traversing soldiers and scientists, which threw up several problems. The biggest challenge faced by the "Sg-1" VFX team was trying to find new locations to stand in for the various alien planets in the series. But the show also needed a lot of guest actors to portray the extra-terrestrial races that inhabit the multitude of distant planets explored by the Sg-1 team. Often, the show and its spin-offs got around that particular challenge by casting the same actors in different roles. One of the most prolific "Stargate Sg-1" guest stars, for example, actually played nine different characters, though thanks to the prosthetics and makeup you'd never know it was the same guy.

But there were also multiple guest stars who only showed up a handful of episodes.

He may be ignored by most of the "Star Wars" fandom, but Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) was one of the coolest parts of "The Phantom Menace," the first (or fourth) episode in the "Star Wars" saga. In a movie that's often characterized as being way too talky and meandering, Qui-Gon kept things to the point. He was direct and stoic, wise and gentle. He had a wholesome relationship with young Anakin (Jake Lloyd), and there was never any doubt that he was a good mentor to young Obi-Wan. 

Despite this, Liam Neeson wasn't particularly happy with how Qui-Gon went out. Near the end of "The Phantom Menace," in perhaps the movie's only scene with some genuine emotional pathos to it, Qui-Gon is slain by that dastardly Darth Maul. Maul stabs him through the stomach with his dual-bladed lightsaber, and leaves him dying on the floor. It's a tragic end and,...

Paramount has been in the news a fair bit recently, for good reasons and, mostly, bad (for nerds who like boring stuff like free speech and political independence or whatever). But uh ... they did put a lot of Showtime content on Paramount+. That kinda makes up for it all, right?

The concerning and confounding decisions of the network's parent company aside, Showtime has long been the under-sung hero of prestige TV and the golden age of television at large. Would there be any shows with psychopathic, murderous protagonists without the success of "Dexter?" Would the political thriller subgenre be complete without "Homeland?" And is there a family drama so perfectly and relatably balanced between humor and heartbreak as "Shameless?" Unfortunately, you can't watch everything Showtime has produced on Paramount+ as of writing -- that said, of the shows available, these are the 15 most deserving of a rewatch.

Read more: The...

"Thunderbolts*," with its stylish fight scenes and commentary on mental health, was a breath of fresh air for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. /Film's own Bj Colangelo praised the film as "the type of movie the MCU needs right now." It's kind of a minor miracle it works as well as it does since the central team is made up of C-listers, like Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbour), reprising their characters from 2021's "Black Widow." Seeing as how important that film is to Marvel's "Thunderbolts*," it's kind of surprising Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), Yelena's makeshift mother, is nowhere to be seen. 

She hasn't been completely absent from the MCU since 2021. She shows up in a season 2 episode of "What If...?" titled "What If... Captain Carter Fought the Hydra Stomper?" The animated installment picks up from the season 1 episode where Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) receives the super...

Lindsay Lohan is sharing her frustrations about how growing up in the public eye pigeonholed her from playing more sophisticated roles.

“Yeah, I do [think I was pigeonholed],” she said in an interview with The Times U.K.. “I was so thrilled to work on ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ and yet even today I have to fight for stuff that is like that, which is frustrating. Because, well, you know me as this — but you also know I can do that. So let me! Give me the chance. I have to break that cycle and open doors to something else, leaving people no choice. And in due time, if Martin Scorsese reaches out, I’m not going to say no.”

Lohan began acting at an early age and had her first breakout role in 1998’s “The Parent Trap.” She became a household name after appearing in several 2000s films, including “Mean Girls,” “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen...

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This post contains spoilers for "Three Days of the Condor" and its remake.

Sydney Pollack's "Three Days of the Condor" is a natural by-product of post-Watergate America. The looming shadow of this political scandal haunts and defines the 1975 film, fleshing out everything from its overtly cynical impulses to the paranoia-inducing events that guide this effective spy thriller. Based on James Grady's eponymous novel, formerly known as "Six Days of the Condor," the film dives right into the distrust embedded in American society, viewed through the lens of a bookish CIA agent marked for death by shadowy agents who are impossible to track down.

The CIA agent in question is Joe Turner, codenamed Condor (Robert Redford), who is seen working covertly at a so-called literary society, marking encrypted books that might or might not contain hidden messages. After Condor leaves for lunch and returns,...