Robert De Niro may be one of the most respected actors in the world, but when Jodie Foster first met him on the set of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” at just 12 years old, she wasn’t so impressed.

Speaking during a career-spanning conversation at the Marrakech Film Festival on Sunday, Foster recalled how De Niro “took me under his wing” and would bring her to coffee shops to run lines for the film. But since De Niro was taking a Method approach to his character, she found him quite boring.

“We’d run the lines and run the lines a second and third time. And I’m sure maybe some of you have been here when Robert De Niro was here. One of our greatest American actors, so proud to have worked with him — not the most interesting person on earth,” Foster continued. “And at that time, he was very much in character,...

[Editor’s note: This article contains spoilers for both the film and novel versions of “Hamnet.”]

It’s always a question of whether you want to read a book first before you see a movie adaptation, but the flavor of the question facing “Hamnet” is a little bit different. It certainly isn’t one of plot spoilers. The dramatis personae all lived and died 400 years ago, and if you don’t yet know what happens in the William Shakespeare play “Hamlet,” well, your English teacher would prefer that you watch “The Lion King” and not ask ChatGPT, so go do that.

Both Maggie O’Farrell’s novel and Chloé Zhao’s film, which she adapted with help from O’Farrell, are much more about vibes. The story in both makes liberal use of the fact that almost nothing is known about Shakespeare’s family, that English did not have standardized spellings in the late 16th Century, and that the plague, according to O’Farrell’s author’s note,...

On December 4, the IndieWire Honors Winter 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for crafting some of the year’s best films. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers behind films well worth toasting. In the days leading up to the Los Angeles event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers.

Honoring our Impact Award winner Autumn Durald Arkapaw, director Ryan Coogler — himself a previous IndieWire Honors honoree — talks about his collaboration with the cinematographer and what she brought to “Sinners.” As told to Jim Hemphill.

Autumn is incredibly loyal and has a passion for storytelling. When she is working, she is intensely dedicated to the integrity of the image and its capacity to uphold the story and the work of all of the artists involved. She is passionate about everyone...

Throughout the original run of "The Big Bang Theory," Sheldon Cooper, the series protagonist played by Jim Parsons, remains oddly tight-lipped about where he went to college ... but definitely believes that his education was much better than the ones received by his friends and colleagues Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), and Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). So, where did he get his education?

The answer to this question was eventually revealed on the first major spin-off of "The Big Bang Theory," the prequel series "Young Sheldon," which wrapped up its run in 2024 with Sheldon moving to California. Before I get into more details, though, here's the gist: Sheldon...

On December 4, the IndieWire Honors Winter 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for crafting some of the year’s best films. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers behind films well worth toasting. In the days leading up to the Los Angeles event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers.

Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw may be behind some of the year’s most striking imagery, but the innovator who combined 65mm IMAX and Super Panavision 70 to create the gorgeous, ambitious large-format photography of “Sinners” never envisioned a career in filmmaking. In high school, she was interested in photography and made short films with her friends, but never considered them a serious pursuit. When she decided to attend Loyola Marymount University, her intention was to study art history. But even though...

If you feel like you've seen Kelly Hu across a whole bunch of cool things, that's because you have. Not only is her roster loaded with recurring voiceover roles in "Phineas & Ferb," "The Legend of Vox Machina," and the 2012 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" series, but she's also behind a slew of characters in the "Mortal Kombat" games over the past decade. One of Hu's most famous live-action roles is a character who, ironically enough, doesn't speak. Of course, I'm talking about her turn as Yuriko Oyama from "X2: X-Men: United," otherwise known as the lethal Lady Deathstrike. The Marvel Comics villain is a fierce counterpart to Logan...

The turn of the millennium was a great time to be an animation fan, but a horrible time to be a studio executive. Indeed, the early 2000s saw the release of several huge animated movies that defied what a studio feature could look like yet failed to light the box office on fire, including Disney's fantastic Jules Verne-inspired steampunk adventure "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" (the rare animated movie that actually warrants a live-action remake) and its sci-fi "Treasure Island" re-telling "Treasure Planet" (which similarly rules). Meanwhile, Don Bluth made his own animated sci-fi epic with "Titan A.E.," a film that effectively bankrupted Fox Animation. However, it wasn't the only...

Jon Favreau's "The Mandalorian and Grogu," a continuation of the TV series "The Mandalorian," will be the first theatrically released "Star Wars" movie since 2019's "Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker" when it arrives in 2026. That seems like a long time to wait for this franchise. When Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012, the studio announced a grand plan to release a new "Star Wars" film every year. The odd-numbered years would see the arrival of the next mainline entry in the franchise, while the even-numbered years would see spin-off films and other movies hit the scene. That approach proved to be less-than-successful, though, so the plan was changed.

Warning: spoilers for "It: Welcome to Derry follow.

"It: Welcome to Derry" hasn't yet revealed how the military discovered Dick Hallorann's psychic abilities. According to actor Chris Chalk, while the origin of his character's unofficial conscription goes unaddressed in the show, there were discussions about how Hallorann got caught up in the Derry saga, and the prevailing theory is that it all began with a harmless game of cards.

"Stranger Things" might be back for its fifth and final season, but there's room for two horror series that involve a small town beset by supernatural occurrences that have attracted the attention of the U.S. military. "Welcome to Derry" continues...

Visual Media Studio (Vms) is debuting at the second edition of Indonesia’s Jaff with romantic drama The Last Flight and Hope, an Indonesian remake of a Korean feature film.

The Last Flight stars real-life celebrity couple Jerome Kurnia and Nadya Arina as a pilot and a flight attendant who become embroiled in a love scandal, touching on a subject matter rarely seen in Indonesian cinema. It is scheduled to open in local cinemas on January 15.

Hope is adapted from the 2013 Korean film of the same name directed by Lee Joon-ik and produced by Lotte Entertainment. Based on a true story,...

Back in 2003, Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg delivered "It's All About Love" and was immediately excoriated by critics for making a movie that was, according to most, an incoherent mess. But the film does have some interesting ideas, and while this certainly isn't a near-perfect sci-fi movie that somehow slipped under the radar, it might one day be considered an underrated sci-fi movie, even if it hasn't quite reached that point yet.

"It's All About Love" is a romantic drama that's also an apocalyptic sci-fi vision of the future. It's a very post-9/11 film. Not in the sense that it's full of terrorists and renewed jingoistic fervor, but in the sense...

Indonesia’s cinema market is experiencing significant volatility in 2025, with box office numbers fluctuating despite breakthrough successes, according to industry leaders speaking at the Jaff Market panel “Expert Witnesses: Indonesia’s Box Office Transformation as Seen From Home and Abroad.”

Angga Dwimas Sasongko, filmmaker and founder and group CEO of Visinema, revealed that while animated feature “Jumbo,” produced by the company, achieved nearly 11 million admissions this year to become the country’s all-time box office champion, other months saw ticket sales drop below 3 million. The film’s seven-year production journey represents a strategic shift for Indonesian producers seeking sustainable growth beyond domestic theatrical revenue.

“We always succeed when we try to be different,” Sasongko said, noting that Visinema’s counter-programming strategy has consistently delivered results. However, he emphasized the need for industry restructuring, suggesting a potential cap of 160 films annually to address market oversaturation.

The panel featuring producer Todd Brown...

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

Doc NYC, US - November 12-30

Foyle Film Festival, UK - November 19-30

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

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

King’s Lynn Film Festival, UK - November 27-30

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

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

Jaff Market,...

Indonesia’s Mandela Pictures and Korea-l.A.-based Desert Bloom Pictures have forged a four-film development slate, with the pact unveiled at the Jaff Market in Yogyakarta.

The partnership establishes a pipeline of projects designed to bridge Indonesia, Korea and Hollywood markets, combining Desert Bloom’s track record in Korean blockbusters with Mandela’s intellectual property and positioning in Southeast Asia’s largest theatrical market.

Desert Bloom is headed by executives Jennice Lee, Hugh Cha and Park Hyoungjin, whose combined credits include Korean box office hits “Exhuma” and “Along With the Gods,” along with experience at Studio Dragon, Dexter Studios and Lotte Cultureworks. The Seoul-l.A. operation develops cross-cultural content targeting Asian and American audiences.

Mandela Pictures, run by the Samtani brothers — Manoj, Deepak and Lavesh — operates from Jakarta and is expanding its slate of genre and commercial titles, building on its film library and theatrical and streaming presence in Indonesia.

The Jogja-Netpac Asian Film Festival is partnering with the Asian Film Awards Academy for a second consecutive year to present a Hong Kong film program featuring director Ann Hui and works spanning multiple generations of filmmakers.

Running Nov. 30-Dec. 4 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, the “Together We Dare to Direct” showcase will feature a masterclass with Hui, one of Asian cinema’s most influential female directors, alongside screenings of nine features and four shorts representing different eras of Hong Kong cinema.

The program marks the 20th anniversary of Jaff and builds on the festival’s 2023 collaboration with Afaa, a non-profit founded by the Busan, Hong Kong and Tokyo international film festivals to promote Asian cinema globally.

“Jaff’s collaboration with Afaa represents the transformation of Asian cinema through a selection of curated Hong Kong films lineup, which continues to evolve through various challenges, while reflecting on what can be learned from the...

Magma Entertainment and Bumilangit Entertainment have unveiled “Si Buta dari Gua Hantu: Mata Malaikat” (The Blind Warrior From the Phantom Cave: Angel Eyes), a new feature adaptation of the legendary Indonesian martial arts comic hero who remains the country’s most adapted character, with nine films and 86 TV episodes to date.

The project was revealed at the Jaff Market, with Charles Gozali set to direct and production slated to begin in 2026 ahead of a planned 2027 release.

Hit action-horror movies “Qodrat” (2022) and “Qodrat 2” (2025) were directed by Gozali and produced by Magma Entertainment, with “Qodrat 3” in the works.

“Having [the IP acquired] was like a dream come true for us. We’ve tried to pitch for a different comic adaptation 12 years ago, so this is very special,” Gozali told Variety. The period comic book adaptation brings in a new chapter for Magma Entertainment. “Staying true to the books, the adaptation is trying to keep the original story’s breath.

Indonesian filmmaker Angga Dwimas Sasongko lit up Jaff Market 2025 with the first major public reveal of his new action-fantasy feature “Queen of Malacca” (“Ratu Malaka”), presenting an ensemble cast and giving audiences a candid look at the project’s creative evolution and world-building.

The project was first revealed by Variety at the Cannes Film Market.

At Jaff Market, Sasongko confirmed the film’s ensemble through a rapid-fire onstage presentation, revealing stylized character boards for lead Claresta Taufan, currently enjoying acclaim for “Pangku,” Faris Fadjar, Lutesha, Ganindra Bimo, Dion Wiyoko, Jihane Almira, and Wulan Guritno, along with producer Kori Adyanning and veteran Hong Kong stunt coordinator Chan Man-ching, whose arrival drew loud applause.

Sasongko positioned “Queen of Malacca” as a contemporary Southeast Asia-inspired fantasy world with its own mythology, languages and cultural logic. “This is not a period film. It’s modern, it’s contemporary. We built a fantasy world inspired...

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One of the biggest challenges for "Avengers: Age of Ultron" was making the villainous Ultron (voiced by James Spader) feel threatening. This was the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first official robot villain, and while robots can certainly be threatening (see: "The Terminator") it's also easy for them to look silly instead. As explained in the 2021 behind-the-scenes book "The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe," the visual development team struggled to make Ultron threatening while still being capable of "convey[ing] human emotions." As director Joss Whedon put it:

"In the comics, Ultron always has his mean face on.

During a recent appearance on the “So True with Caleb Hearon” podcast, co-director Lilly Wachowski was asked about certain right-wing groups attaching their ideologies to her 1999 sci-fi masterpiece “The Matrix.” Wachowski said she’s unbothered by conservative misinterpretations and knows how to separate herself from her films once they’re released to the public.

“You have to let go of your work. People are gonna interpret it however they interpret it,” Wachowski said. “I look at all of the crazy, mutant theories around ‘The Matrix’ films and the crazy ideologies that those films helped create and I just go, ‘What are you doing? No! That’s wrong!’ But I have to let it go to some extent … You’re never gonna be able to make absolutely every person believe what you initially intended.”

“The Matrix,” specifically the iconic “blue pill or red pill” scene, is the most famous example of...

This post contains spoilers for "Paycheck" and its source material.

Sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick has left behind a striking legacy. Over the course of 40 novels and 120 short stories, Dick blurred the lines between reality and what could've been, etching memorable characters plagued by doubt or delusion. In 1953, when Dick's career had just started taking off, he wrote a chunk of his oeuvre in a burst of inspiration — or just perhaps in an attempt to make a living.

"Paycheck" is one such entry. This 1953 novelette takes place in a dystopian society where workers get their memories wiped after fulfilling their contractual obligations. Jennings, our electronic engineer protagonist, realizes that his...

The modern Chud Grifter Industrial Complex is an economic engine unto itself — a boundless, unwashed sea of reactionary YouTube channels, TikTok accounts, and Reddit threads, all with the express purpose of tearing down any "nerd culture" media deemed too disgustingly woke. Back in the early 2000s, the digital infrastructure that has allowed this tumor on cultural discourse to thrive wasn't nearly as fully formed, but the reactionary rage content persisted nonetheless.

Take "Battlestar Galactica," for example — specifically, the 2003 Syfy reboot. Today, the series is heralded as a genre classic years ahead of its time, having broken new ground with both its genre and overarching narrative structure. Indeed, years before "The Walking Dead...

Kanya Iwana, an Indonesian multidisciplinary artist making her feature directorial debut, has “Ibu” selected for the Jaff Future Project, about three generations of women wrestling with inherited identity in 2011 Yogyakarta.

The Indonesia-u.S. co-production, directed by Iwana and produced by Zack Rice through production company Feed You Films, is among 10 titles selected for the Jaff Future Project at this year’s Jaff Market in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

“Ibu” follows Maya, a formidable Javanese woman who once dreamed of becoming a writer but subsumed her ambitions under obligation and tradition. Now a widow, she parents through manipulation disguised as protection, resenting her daughters for chasing freedoms she was taught she could never claim.

Her eldest daughter Tash fled to Los Angeles years ago, juggling single motherhood with an uncertain creative career. When Maya’s husband Arief dies, Tash returns home to face not only her domineering mother but her commanding grandmother Dewi and half-sister Inez,...

Park Ki-yong, who stepped down as chair of the Korean Film Council (Kofic) last year and directed “Motel Cactus,” which won the New Currents Award at the 1998 Busan International Film Festival, has a new project selected for the Jaff Future Project with “Ghost Island,” a supernatural thriller about parallel Cold War massacres in Korea and Indonesia.

The South Korea-Malaysia-Indonesia co-production, directed and produced by Park alongside Malaysian producer Ho Yuhang through production company Paperheart Sdn Bhd, is among 10 Asia-Pacific titles selected for the Jaff Future Project at this year’s Jaff Market in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

“Ghost Island” follows Ayu, an Indonesian woman who arrives on snow-covered Jeju Island to search for her missing husband Herman, who vanished during their honeymoon. She partners with Inho, a Korean ex-marine turned investigator, as their search leads them through motels, ferry terminals and labor agencies. Herman appears in CCTV footage, yet remains blurred and indistinct,...

Josh Brolin remembers Donald Trump before he was elected president of the United States.

During a recent interview with The Independent, Brolin said he understands Trump in a different light, having “been a friend” of his before he was president. This understanding makes Brolin confident that Trump won’t try to serve a third term, a possibility that circulates in some political spheres and is occasionally elevated by Trump himself.

“I’m not scared of Trump, because even though he says he’s staying forever, it’s just not going to happen,” Brolin said. “And if it does, then I’ll deal with that moment. But having been a friend of Trump before he was president, I know a different guy.”

The “No Country for Old Men” star met Trump around the production of “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” Oliver Stone’s 2010 financial drama. Trump was set to appear in...

Before he became a star Sylvester Stallone fronted a thriller that went largely overlooked, despite the fact it was re-released several times in the post-"Rocky" world. Originally called "No Place to Hide," the film saw a 25-year-old Stallone portray a political activist who plans several bombings — and he was almost joined by a similarly up-and-coming Richard Pryor, who a decade later had become a big enough star to play a villain in 1983's "Superman III."

In 1969 a young Stallone moved to New York City to pursue his acting dream. Seven years later, he propelled himself to stardom by writing "Rocky" (in an incredible three short days) and somehow convincing...

Indonesian filmmaker Adriyanto Dewo has a new psychological horror project selected for the Jaff Future Project with “Evil Underground,” about estranged sisters trapped in a mall basement.

The Indonesia production, directed by Dewo and produced by Perlita Desiani and Tina Arwin through production company Relate Films, is among 10 Asia-Pacific titles selected for the Jaff Future Project at this year’s Jaff Market in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

“Evil Underground” follows a group of teenagers who gather for a midnight horror screening at an old, decaying trade center. Among them are sisters Dian and Mirna, still estranged after their father’s death sent Dian into a mental-health retreat. After the film, a friend dares them to try a viral ritual in the mall’s lowest basement: five circles at midnight, headlights off, a simple mantra.

Nothing happens until the final loop ends with a violent jolt, and when they step out to check,...

Jakarta Vice Governor and veteran actor Rano Karno used a Jaff Market panel in Yogyakarta to outline a plan to position the capital as a global filmmaking hub ahead of its 500th anniversary in 2027, declaring, “It’s time,” as he called for a coordinated push to make Jakarta a film-friendly city.

“Jakarta will be turning 500 years old in 2027. So what can we create in celebration of this?” Karno asked. Along with Andi Boediman, producer and CEO, Ideosource Entertainment, Indonesian producers’ association Aprofi chair Edwin Nazir, and director Ernest Prakasa, the panel discussed the future of Indonesia’s film industry and filmmaking ecosystem – specifically in Jakarta.

Karno proposed a thesis about ways in which Jakarta as a city can serve further purpose in filmmaking and expand its cultural experiences in its efforts of becoming a global city. “The celebration of Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary took three years to prepare, and yet...

The holiday season is once again upon us, and that means it's time for Kevin McCallister, The Grinch, and Buddy the Elf to dominate screens for the next month. Sometimes, though, you just want some alternative Christmas movies to mix things up, and if that's you, "Jingle Bell Heist" is a solid choice. In a year full of romantic comedies, Netflix is finishing 2025 strong with this festive film that, like so much of the romance fare that's hit streamers recently, sees an American woman fall in love with a dashing stranger. But there's enough here to make "Jingle Bell Heist" distinct from other recent hit romantic comedies, as evidenced by the reviews,...

This post contains spoilers for "Mad Men" season 7.

There is no shortage of tragedy on "Mad Men," a show that's fundamentally about unhappy people trying to fulfill social roles that don't quite fit them. But perhaps most tragic of all is the eleventh hour reveal that Betty (January Jones) has terminal lung cancer.

The reveal makes sense, given the sheer amount of cigarettes Betty smokes over the course of the show, but it still stings. Not only is Betty still in her 30s when she's diagnosed, but she'd recently started to find herself. Indeed, she receives her fatal cancer diagnosis in the midst of returning to school to pursue a career in psychology.

Indonesia and Malaysia are set for closer and stronger collaboration through a string of genre projects announced at Jaff Market on Saturday (November 29). These include Indonesian remakes of Malaysian box office hits Munafik and Khurafat.

The Indonesian version of horror film Munafik is directed by Guntur Soeharjanto and stars Arya Saloka and Acha Septriasa. It is produced by Indonesia’s Oswin Bonifanz of Unlimited Productions, along with Malaysia’s Skop Productions and Komet Productions, and Indonesia’s A&z Films and Legacy Pictures.

The Indonesian remake of Khurafat will be directed by Malaysia’s Zahir Omar and feature an Indonesian cast.

This article contains partial spoilers for "Match."

Horror nerds have long become accustomed to Tubi as the place to get an easy fix. The ad-supported streaming service is a spectacular treasure trove of genre movies. You could spend so much time scrolling through their collection of mainstream hits, cult classics, and obscure oddities — as I so often have — and be consistently amazed by the depths of their library. Tubi differentiates itself from services you actually have to pay for, like including movies and television shows from before 1980. Where else will you find "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" next to a bunch of early 2000s Dark Castle Entertainment movies? In the past four years,...

Dean Koontz is a bestselling author with book sales on par (if not exceeding) Stephen King's, and the two were often spoken of in the same breath in the late 1980s and 1990s. It was always a meaningless comparison since their themes, styles, and stories bear little resemblance to each other, but regardless, King came out on top in pop culture thanks in large part to the caliber of films adapted from his work. Koontz wasn't nearly as lucky, but fifteen movies/mini-series were still made between 1977 and 2013 — and we're ranking them all below.

While a few of them managed theatrical releases, most of these went either straight to video or to television,...

Vince Gilligan's "Pluribus" is one of the most fascinating shows of 2025. It's a peculiar sci-fi series featuring a superb Rhea Seehorn performance that takes the same kind of slow-burn approach to character drama as Gilligan's "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul," all the while including enough worldbuilding and intrigue to keep you guessing as to what, exactly, the endgame is.

This has so far allowed "Pluribus" to avoid the problem that plagues most mystery box series, in which the mystery overshadows everything else, and the show's lack of answers becomes disappointing. Here, we know pretty much everything there is to know. Thus, the question becomes what the series'...

The arid plains might soon give way to something far more verdant for “Sirat” director Oliver Laxe, who is looking to the rainforest for inspiration.

“I’m very drawn to the Amazon,” he tells Variety, pointing to “the ceremonies, the soul of the place, its rituals and its medicines” as elements he hopes to explore next. But before he starts writing, Laxe will need to pack his bags. “I need to experience it,” he explains. “I don’t turn reality into film from a distance; it has to be lived. It has to be felt.”

For now, he’ll have to wait, as he’s currently deep into an awards campaign that has taken him all the way to the Marrakech Film Festival. Still, Laxe’s brief stay in Marrakech feels like something of a homecoming for a filmmaker who lived in Morocco for more than a decade, who launched his career out of Tangier,...

John Carpenter's "Escape from New York" is the undisputed king of futuristic movies about soldiers fighting bad guys on a prison island, but it isn't the only great one of the bunch. In 1994, the late Hollywood legend Ray Liotta starred in the Martin Campbell-directed "No Escape," an unsung action treat that is currently available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Based on Richard Herley's "The Penal Colony," Campbell's film takes place in the year 2022, where corporations rule over the justice and penal systems. This leads to the creation of an off-the-grid island called Absolom, where criminals are sent to fend for themselves. Enter Liotta's John Robbins,...

If you thought Quentin Tarantino didn’t have even more to add to “Kill Bill” and make the film any longer, think again.

Tarantino is set to release possibly his greatest movie, “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair,” which is a four-plus-hour cut of “Kill Bill” combined as one film, in theaters next month. It includes an un-seen anime sequence that wasn’t even in the original Cannes cut of “Kill Bill,” but that wasn’t the only thing he had previously left on the cutting room floor.

There was yet another chapter of the film that Tarantino wrote for the very first draft of his film, but he trimmed it and the sequence was never filmed. Now, more than 20 years after the release of both “Kill Bill” movies, Tarantino has turned to an unusual means to bring his vision of this lost “Kill Bill” scene to life: the massively popular video game “Fortnite.

Cineastes know this piece of trivia well: John Schlesinger's 1969 sex worker drama "Midnight Cowboy" remains, to date, the only Oscar-winning film to have been given an MPAA-designated "X" rating. Recall that the X rating was given back when the MPAA's rating system was still new and only incorporated four letters. There was G (for General audiences), M (for Mature audiences), R (for Restricted audiences), and X (no one under 16 can see it). The phrase "X-Rated," however, was eventually co-opted by the porn industry, as were the unofficial expansions "Xx-rated" and "XXX-rated." To this day, XXX is still used to designate porn.

As such, a curious young cinematic adventurer may...

Guy Pearce issued an apology on Thursday for sharing “misinformation and falsehoods” about Israel on social media while supporting Palestine online.

“It has been brought to my attention that, in my support of Palestine, I have inadvertently re-posted articles, and/or statements, that have contained misinformation and falsehoods,” Pearce told Jewish News. “I am aware how sharing inaccurate content can cause confusion and distress; for this I am deeply sorry. I will certainly endeavour to be more diligent in future to verify anything I share online.”

According to Jewish News, “The Brutalist” star shared material online featuring the highly controversial far-right political commentator and white nationalist Nick Fuentes. He also reportedly shared material that blamed Israel for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, accused Israeli officials of facilitating the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and claimed the “top three pornography companies are owned by Jewish people.”

Jewish News also reports that Pearce...

Tom Stoppard, the brilliant, beloved playwright who won Tonys for writing “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “The Real Thing,” “Travesties,” “The Coast of Utopia,” and “Leopoldstadt,” has died. He was 88 years old.

Stoppard’s agency, United Agents, announced the news on its website.

“We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved client and friend, Tom Stoppard, has died peacefully at home in Dorset, surrounded by his family,” the post stated. “He will be remembered for his works, for their brilliance and humanity, and for his wit, his irreverence, his generosity of spirit, and his profound love of the English language. It was an honour to work with Tom and to know him.”

Stoppard was a cherished and acclaimed fixture of theater on both sides of the Atlantic who wrote more than 30 plays across an iconic career, earning three Laurence Olivier Awards for “Arcadia” (1994), “Heroes” (2006), and “Leopoldstadt” (2020). Celebrated for his cerebral writing and savvy,...

You know you're in for a ride when an elephant poops on the camera lens within the first 10 minutes of a three-hour prestige piece. That's not even the most outrageous thing that occurs in the opening moments of "Babylon," writer/director Damien Chazelle's baroque (make that go for broke) ode to the debauchery and excess that characterized Hollywood as it transitioned from silent cinema to "talkies" in the late 1920s. Indeed, anyone with so much as a passing interest in filmmaking history would do well to check out (or rewatch) Chazelle's costly 2022 flop when it heads to Netflix on December 7, 2025. As for everyone else? Well, keep reading.

While "Babylon...

Seven-time Oscar nominee and Oscar-winner Kate Winslet (“The Reader”) takes over the Screen Talk podcast this week to talk about her directorial debut “Goodbye June,” starring Helen Mirren, Andrea Riseborough, Johnny Flynn, Timothy Spall, Toni Collette, and herself as a fractious family who come together ahead of Christmas to sit vigil for the family matriarch (Mirren).

She also talks about some of her favorite films that got less attention than her big hits, like “Titanic,” where she forged her lifelong friendship with Leonardo DiCaprio, who is like an uncle to her children. She is also proud of beating Tom Cruise twice on underwater breath holds. She returned to work with James Cameron in “Avatar: The Way of Water” and returns in his upcoming holiday movie, “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” After producing five projects — including TV series “Mare of Easttown” and “The Regime,” and the movie “Lee” — Winslet gained the courage to direct.

Jodie Foster was honored with a tribute award at the Marrakech Film Festival on Saturday, where she gave a touching speech in which she reminisced on her six decades in cinema.

After a reel played showing some of her most famous roles, including “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Panic Room,” Foster graciously accepted her trophy on stage.

“Watching all these clips, I thought to myself: I’ve been doing this job for quite a while now,” Foster said, after picking up the award from jury president Bong Joon Ho and joking that she was going to ask him for an autograph. “I started in the 1960s, then I was lucky enough to experience the golden age of cinema in the 1970s. Then came the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and now we’re back in the 1970s again.”

Foster added of her career, “It’s been a very long time indeed.

"The Hunger Games" tells an uncomfortably relevant story of a group of young people who are randomly chosen to fight to the death in an outdoor arena. Society has become a dystopian nightmare. Totalitarian government-approved death sports are used to maintain order over the people. The only survivors are a boy and girl who develop a close bond. Fun premise, right? Well, it isn't the only story of its kind, as the 2000 Japanese movie "Battle Royale" explored the concept years before Suzanne Collins' novels, and the "Hunger Games" movie series that followed, came to be.

The similarities certainly haven't been lost on Quentin Tarantino, a filmmaker who's cited the Kinji Fukasaku...

[Editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for “Zootopia 2.”]

The climactic moment of “Zootopia 2” is one that wouldn’t be out of place in a Nora Ephron script. Bunny cop Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and her fox partner Nick Wilde (voiced by Jason Bateman), having struggled to communicate and express their gratitude over the course of an entire film, take a break from the action to really say how they feel about each other.

Their emotions are high: they mutually call each other the best part of their life, someone they can’t imagine being without, their pack or their fluffle (a group of bunnies). Hearing them spill their guts like they can’t bear to keep their feelings in any longer, it’s easy to expect this to climax in a big, bold, cinematically satisfying kiss.

Except, it doesn’t happen — and not just because it’d be a challenge for the animation team...

Steve McQueen was one of the coolest movie stars ever. He exuded steely confidence as Old West bounty hunter Josh Randall on the CBS series "Wanted Dead or Alive" and was so at home in that milieu that director John Sturges cast him as the second lead in his epic Western "The Magnificent Seven." It was a rapid ascent to the upper echelon of Hollywood's A-list after that, with McQueen captivating audiences with his tough, taciturn demeanor in classics like "The Great Escape," "The Cincinnati Kid," and "The Sand Pebbles" (for which he earned his first and only Oscar nomination for Best Actor).

1968 was the year McQueen became a full-fledged screen icon.

Director David Freyne has spent a long time thinking about afterlives. He did his film thesis in college on the sterling Powell and Pressburger comedy “A Matter of Life and Death,” which has a playful post-war twist on the world to come, as well as the brilliant manipulation of color that The Archers are known for. So it’s unsurprising there is a lot of Powell and Pressburger in Freyne’s new A24 film, “Eternity” — especially in the design of the film’s own cosmic train junction/hotel/infinite convention center wherein souls may elect where they wish to spend the rest of time.

Working with production designer Zazu Myers, Freyne didn’t want to replicate the concept behind “A Matter of Life and Death,” which paints the living world in gorgeous color and the afterlife in a majestic but frozen black and white. What he did want was to...

In Sam Raimi's 1981 splatter flick "The Evil Dead," a group of five Detroit college kids trek out to a remote cabin in the woods of Tennessee for a quiet vacation. In the basement of the cabin, they find a mysterious reel-to-reel tape recorder left behind by the previous tenant. When they play it, they hear a professor reciting a dark spell from an evil grimoire, summoning demons from the nether-realms. The tape recorder causes the demons to return, and the bulk of the film is the college kids fighting off — unsuccessfully — the wicked Deadites from beyond. The final survivor of "The Evil Dead" attack is the feckless Ash (Bruce Campbell...

Playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard, a four-time Tony winner for his plays “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Travesties,” “The Real Thing” and “The Coast of Utopia” and an Oscar winner for his script to “Shakespeare in Love,” has died, according to The BBC. He was 88.

“We’re deeply saddened to announce that our beloved client and friend, Tom Stoppard, has died peacefully at home in Dorset, surrounded by his family,” United Agents told Sky News. “He’ll be remembered for his works, for their brilliance and humanity, and for his wit, his irreverence, his generous spirit and his profound love of the English language.”

Stoppard, who fled Czechoslovakia as a child during Nazi rule and eventually settled in England, was a master stylist of language, perhaps best known for his clever wordplay. Writing for the stage, screen and radio, he explored themes such as betrayal, politics and identity, the last...

"Stranger Things" has given us an array of terrifying monsters across four seasons. For the fifth and final season, however, show creators Matt and Ross Duffer packed the episodes with so much material that they felt focusing on new creatures would have been a step too far. Rather than trying to top themselves by cramming the fifth and final season with entirely new demonic abominations, they decided instead to focus on the creatures that have already been established in the world of the show. 

The kids of "Stranger Things" have got to be some of the most formidable heroes in modern pop culture. These youngsters have faced off against some of the most terrifying,...

On December 4, the IndieWire Honors Winter 2025 ceremony will celebrate the creators and stars responsible for crafting some of the year’s best films. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers behind films well worth toasting. In the days leading up to the Los Angeles event, IndieWire is showcasing their work with new interviews and tributes from their peers.

Honoring Ryan White, our Magnify Award winner and her fellow producer, multi-hyphenate Tig Notaro reflects on the process of creating the loving and lovely documentary “Come See Me in the Good Light” and why she knew White was the right filmmaker for such a delicate gig.

As told to Kate Erbland.

I met Jessica Hargrave, Ryan’s producing partner, first. Years ago, she was the tour manager for Sarah Silverman’s bus tour, and I was opening for Sarah. After the tour,...