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Given its monumental status as one of the greatest films ever made, it is perhaps surprising that there aren't more movies about the circumstances surrounding the making of "Citizen Kane." After all, beyond the technical dazzle of Orson Welles' magnum opus, it is also the story of a clash between two towering egos at opposite ends of their careers: In one corner Welles, the prodigiously talented upstart from New York who was handed the keys to Hollywood for his first motion picture; in the other, William Randolph Hearst, the fearsome magnate who dominated the largest and most influential media empire in the United States. It is also the tale of two sprawling estates that became monuments to their builders; Hearst Castle, an opulent testament to Heart's immense wealth, and Xanadu, Welles' gloomy fictionalized version of the former that would loom large over the rest of his career. Yet, to date,...

The following article is an excerpt from the latest edition of “In Review by David Ehrlich,” a biweekly newsletter in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the site’s latest reviews and muses about current events in the movie world. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter in your inbox every other Friday.

Ben Mankiewicz is never someone who I expected to find on the wrong side of film history. The face of Turner Classic Movies since Robert Osborne’s death, in addition to being the grandson of “Citizen Kane” screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and the grand-nephew of “All About Eve” director Joseph L. Mankiewicz,” the Hollywood scion is nothing less than a living emblem of the sanctity and enduring value of 20th century cinema. Delivered in a nasal but welcoming voice that’s capable of making 100-year-old masterpieces sound like vital artifacts and spectacular entertainments all at once,...

Orson Welles’ 1941 classic, “Citizen Kane,” is regarded by many as one of the greatest films of all time. It’s also considered one of the most influential films. It’s still talked about to this day and has impacted filmmakers including Martin Scorsese and David Fincher. Fincher directed “Mank,” which tells the story of Herman J. Mankiewicz and how he developed the script for Welles.

“Mank” producer Douglas Urbanski attended the Variety 120 Screening Series presented by Barco, a summer-long program hosted by Jazz Tangcay that celebrates Variety‘s 120th anniversary by showing iconic films such as “All About Eve” and “Psycho.”

Urbanksi, who first saw “Citizen Kane” during his days at New York University, discussed the film’s lasting impact and explained that a lot of it has to do with the stories and mystique surrounding the film.

He said, “’Citizen Kane’ has everything that’s not on the screen that lends to its mystique.

Your daily dose of movie-related puzzles can be found at Framed, which offers a total of 3 interactive puzzles that must be solved within 6 attempts each. It’s a great way to exercise your thinking muscles and aid you in pattern recognition. This also helps keep your mind sharp and is a generally more productive way to pass the time.

These puzzles can be a fair bit challenging for the average movie-goer though, and I have prepared a series of solutions for all 3 puzzles of the day. This will include both a breakdown of the puzzle and its correct answer. Let’s begin, shall we?

Framed Classic Solution for Today Image Credits: Framed/FandomWire

Today’s Framed Classic solution follows the same rules set by its predecessors. That is, players will have to guess the correct name of the movie from a set of 6 slides. These slides are random stills from the movie in question.

Charlie Day is obviously best known for playing beloved degenerate Charlie Kelly on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But the actor has appeared in a number of other notable movies and TV shows, including Horrible Bosses, Fool’s Paradise and one episode of Law & Order — although he only had a very small part as a helpful witness, unlike Mac, who somehow landed a juicy teen murderer role.

But Day’s first ever on-screen acting job was in Mary & Rhoda. The 2000 TV movie began as a pilot for a planned reboot of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but CBS ultimately passed on the “updated” version. “If you loved The Mary Tyler Moore Show, stay away from Mary & Rhoda,” one review read.

During a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Day recalled that the role was limited to just one line. His character, named “Mailroom Kid,” simply had to tell Moore’s...

Brad Pitt’s new F1 movie will race into theaters in just a few weeks, but one of the most iconic films of his career has become a global streaming hit more than 25 years after it was released. Pitt stars alongside Edward Norton in Fight Club, the 1999 psychological thriller following an office worker and a soap maker who team up to form an underground fight club that evolves into something much more. Fight Club debuted on Max at the start of the month, and the film has surged into the streamer’s top 10, sitting at #7 at the time of writing. Pitt famously turned to his co-star Edward Norton at the 1999 Venice Film Festival — as Fight Club was being rigorously booed — and said, “This is the best movie I’m ever going to be in.”

Fight Club is based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, and Jim Uhls...

After making what many people cite as the greatest film ever made, "Citizen Kane" (1941), multi-talented actor, writer, director and producer Orson Welles struggled to live up to the success he achieved when he was just 26 years old. Yet seen today, many of the films he made afterwards have attained a similar acclaim. Let's take a look back at all 13 of his completed feature films as a director, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1915, Welles first came to prominence as a stage director, mounting groundbreaking productions of "Macbeth," "Dr. Faustus," and "The Cradle Will Rock" before forming his own repertory company, The Mercury Theater. In addition to Welles, the Mercury Theater Players included Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorhead, Everett Sloane, George Coulouris, Norman Lloyd, Martin Gabel and Paul Stewart, many of whom would go onto appear in the director's films.

It was the Mercury Theater's transition into radio that brought them the most acclaim.

Sometimes news about anticipated films comes from the most unexpected of places. One incredibly exciting project that has recently gone into development is a sequel to Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood. In a surprising turn of events, David Fincher signed on to helm the project, and his first-look deal with Netflix means the film will go to the streaming-based studio in another twist of fate. Initial reports suggest that the road to getting this film produced is complicated, but it's still exciting nonetheless to see a Tarantino script in the hands of another accomplished filmmaker. Now, a Deadline Q&a with Sinners star Michael B. Jordan has inadvertently revealed plenty of new details about the project.

In Deadline's exclusive piece, the moderator of the Q&a highlighted the rich mythology of Tarantino films and how the depth of his characters invites potential spinoffs, similar to...

Few directors have a penchant for precision, like David Fincher. He is a master of mood, method, and mischief, and there is something inherently hypnotic about his style of cinema. While films like Fight Club, The Social Network, and Se7en have come to define the filmmaker’s legacy and filmography, another side of his work often gets relegated to the B side.

A still from David Fincher’s Se7en | Credits: New Line Cinema

Here, we’re ranking ten of his most underrated projects and discussing why they deserve your attention.

10. Mank (2020)

David Fincher rarely gets credit for his playfulness as much as he does for his precision. Mank is a homage to 1930s and ’40s Hollywood that isn’t a love letter to its Golden Age but a look at its hypocrisies and ambitions.

Gary Oldman (who was nominated for an Academy for his role) stars as Herman J. Mankiewicz,...

Exclusive: Production designer Donald Graham Burt has signed with Gersh for representation.

Burt is a two-time Academy Award and BAFTA winner for his work on Mank and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a pair of acclaimed films from David Fincher. The former drama, starring Gary Oldman, which also brought Burt the award for Best Production Design at the Critics Choice Awards, focused on screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and his turbulent journey in writing the screenplay for the iconic 1941 film Citizen Kane. The latter stars Brad Pitt as a man born with the physical appearance and ailments of an elderly person, who ages in reverse.

These projects mark just two of Burt’s collaboration with Fincher. Over the years, he’s also worked with the director on titles including Zodiac, Gone Girl, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Killer, as well as Netflix’s House of Cards.

Burt...

A few fun facts about Oscar statuettes: 

The award is 13-and-a-half inches tall, and the award, overall, weighs about eight-and-a-half pounds. The statues are made of solid bronze and are plated in real gold. During metal shortages during World War II, the Oscars were made out of painted plaster, although winners were permitted to swap them for bronze ones once the materials were plentiful again. 

It's been said that handing an Oscar too much can make the gold tarnish, so Oscar winners have to be careful with them. The statuettes are made by an art foundry in Chicago called Polich Tallix, the same firm that handled the work of Roy Lichtenstein, and the Korean War Memorial in Washington, D.C. 

The statuettes also, technically, don't belong to the voters or to the people who win them. Indeed, starting in 1951, the Motion Picture Academy introduced a new rule forbidding recipients from...

What to do with The Magnificent Ambersons, director Orson Welles’ follow-up to Citizen Kane? More than seven decades after the movie hit cinemas, it remains a flashpoint of discussion and debate among cinephiles. Some proclaim it as one of the Greatest Movies Ever Made, a worthy successor in style and substance to Citizen Kane. Others, including Welles himself, decry the studio interference that diluted the directorial vision, deeming the film a bastardized mishmash of tone and style.

But in a vacuum, unencumbered by the movie’s considerable baggage, how does The Magnificent Ambersons play today? The story of an American family at the turn of the 20th century living on the brink of Industrial Revolution, Welles’ film has no shortage of stunning imagery, innovation, or human drama. Even if the movie didn’t fulfill Welles’ original vision, the final product does deserve mention as an American classic: one that offers...

David Fincher has worked with the Netflix streaming service on three separate projects so far – the crime thriller TV series Mindhunter, which ran for two seasons; the 2020 biopic Mank, which was nominated for multiple Academy Awards and took home two Oscars (for Best Production Design and Best Cinematography); and the 2023 action thriller The Killer. These movies and the TV show are still available to watch on Netflix, but a lot of fans have been wondering if they’ll ever receive a physical media release… and Fincher doubts that will ever happen.

While discussing the 4K release of his film Se7en with Collider, Fincher was asked if his Netflix projects will ever get a physical release, as “the appetite for that is through the roof.” He answered, “That’s very sweet, but I don’t know. I like physical media, but I really like on-demand. I mean, I love liner notes,...

Although not the revered classic that Citizen Kane is, How Green Was My Valley beat out the Orson Welles film to achieve the highest honor in the filmmaking business. Along with Casablanca, Citizen Kane is widely regarded as one of the two biggest contenders for the title of the greatest movie of all time. But of those two, only one - Casablanca - actually received the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Like Casablanca would a year later in 1943, Citizen Kane earned a multitude of nominations at the 14th Academy Awards. However, its only win was Best Original Screenplay, which went to Herman J. Mankiewicz. It lost on multiple fronts, with one movie in particular being the biggest reason for Citizen Kane coming up short. Legendary director John Ford, a filmmaker whose legacy is intertwined with John Wayne's, managed to top Citizen Kane with a film he made in-between Ford's collaborations with Wayne.

A nice bit of foreshadowing can make any movie even more fascinating to watch. These subtle clues about events yet to come will often go over the heads of the audience the first time around, but can be exciting to notice upon a rewatch. After all, these brief moments can prove that the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing all along, having thought about exactly how the film would end from the moment it started.

Some iconic movies, however, take this idea even further. Every once in a while, a film is made that subtly reveals key details of the ending within the very first sequence. A carefully constructed opening scene has the ability to hint at where the film may be heading, even if viewers don't realize that it is all being laid out right in front of them. While they may be overlooked on their first viewing,...

Slow Horses is back for its fourth outing, prompting many returning viewers to wonder who is in the hit Apple TV+ show's cast. Slow Horses season 4's story will pull its plot and characters from Spook Street, another entry in Mick Herron's Slough House series of books. So far, the unconventional British spy thriller has adapted Herron's Slow Horses, Dead Lions, and Real Tigers, promising another Slow Horses entry that differs from the books in small ways, all while capturing their spirit. The series centers on MI5's Slough House the purgatory for "slow horses" who've made career-ending missteps.

Despite being relegated to drudgery, the Slough House agents end up involved in high-profile cases often thanks to Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), the rude-yet-perceptive veteran agent who heads up Slough House's team of incompetent misfits. In Slow Horses season 3's ending, Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves), the office administrator, resigns from Slough House,...

The cast of Blade Runner 2099 keeps on expanding. Tom Burke (Furiosa) and Maurizio Lombardi (Ripley) are the latest additions to the hotly-anticipated Prime Video series, which is currently in production.

According to Deadline, Burke and Lombardi are set for recurring roles in Blade Runner 2099, although character details have not been revealed. They join a cast that includes Michelle Yeoh, Hunter Schafer, Dimitri Abold, Lewis Gribben, Katelyn Rose Downey, and Daniel Rigby, as well as Johnny Harris, Amy Lennox, Sheila Atim, and Matthew Needham. Production on the limited sci-fi series began in Prague in May 2024 and will move to Barcelona at a later date.

Related Prime Video Cancels Acclaimed New Series Weeks After Summer Premiere

Amazon isn't moving forward with a new season of the series despite its strong reviews.

Where Have You Seen Tom Burke and Maurizio Lombardi Before?

Burke can most recently be seen in a starring...

Netflix's best movies based on true stories capture pivotal moments in history with compelling realism. The diverse range of true stories told on Netflix, from WWII dramas to inspirational biographies, captivate audiences. These films shed light on overlooked heroes, challenging situations, and impactful historical events with depth and authenticity.

The best movies based on true stories on Netflix inspire, excite, and impact viewers like no other movie. The film industry loves true stories; for that reason, many of the productions are based on the lives of people who experienced extraordinary situations. Likewise, many of these films manage to capture moments in human history that are important to highlight. Cinema transforms those true stories into more artistic and entertaining elements, choosing the details to be told in order to captivate the audience.

Netflix has some of the best documentaries anywhere, and while there are plenty of true stories to entertain subscribers,...

Most critics and scholars agree that the Golden Age of Hollywood reigned between 1915 and the mid-1960s. However, the true height of this period, when the "Big Five" major film studios maintained their greatest display of power, lasted from the end of the silent era in the late 1920s to the birth of the New Hollywood movement in the mid to late 1960s. The Golden Age of Hollywood operated under the studio system, a filmmaking process in which the "Big Five" studios controlled production, distribution, and exhibition. The "Big Five" studios included Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Rko Pictures.

The Golden Age of Hollywood cultivated technological advancement, narrative invention, editing philosophies, and cinematographic styles that would influence film industries all around the world. Cinema's origins began as a novelty, a cultural phenomenon many believed would be nothing more than a fad. The Golden Age of Hollywood...

Orson Welles directed, co-wrote and starred in Citizen Kane when he was just 25, but it has gone down in history as one of the greatest films ever. Citizen Kane tells the story of a newspaper magnate who amasses an enormous fortune but loses everything that's important to him in the process. Citizen Kane's best scenes showcase Welles' innovative direction, as well as the stellar script he produced with legendary screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz.

Orson Welles' masterpiece Citizen Kane remains a landmark in the history of cinema over 80 years later, and its best scenes continue to influence filmmakers today. The quasi-biopic charts the life and death of newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, a character based partially on real-life American business tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Welles stars as Charles, and he also directed and co-wrote the film at just 25 years old.

Citizen Kane is often cited as one of the best films of all time,...

What is the best Australian movie ever made? Walkabout? Wake in Fright? The Piano? Picnic at Hanging Rock? The Babadook? All worthy contenders, no doubt, but they’re all wrong answers. The only acceptable response regarding the best movie from the Land Down Under is Mad Max, George Miller’s marauding motorist mania that celebrated its 45th anniversary in 2024. Never mind the billion-dollar franchise it spawned, the creative ingenuity and low-budget DIY filmmaking of the original remains one of the most impressive cinematic feats on record.

A true independent movie with a rebellious spirit, Mad Max was made in just 12 weeks for a paltry $350,000 yet went on to gross $185 million worldwide. The film introduced the world to Mel Gibson, who would go on to play the badass road-racing Main Force Patrol officer Max Rockatansky twice more en route to becoming a bona fide Hollywood action star. Now, with the law-enforcing...

For his forthcoming one from the heart, Megalopolis, Francis Ford Coppola has once again violated the cardinal rule of the entertainment business: Never invest your own money in the show. Reports are that to bankroll the $120 million epic he has literally mortgaged the farm, or vineyard. The investment is slated to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14.

We — and he — have all been here before. Coppola last went into hock for another long-aborning and cost-overrunning project, which 45 years ago, almost to the day, also premiered at Cannes: the now legendary Apocalypse Now (1979).

At the time, Coppola was bathing in the afterglow of one of the most astonishing back-to-back double, or triple, plays in the industry’s history: The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974), the operatic two-part saga of mob family business in which organized crime serves less as a metaphor for American capitalism than its purest expression (“Michael,...

“I’ve seen Paris, France, and Paris, Paramount Pictures,” Ernst Lubitsch said, or so they say, “and on the whole I prefer Paris, Paramount Pictures.”

The great director’s preference for the Hollywood city of lights over the French one expresses a common enough affinity for illusion over reality, but the studio in question was not chosen for alliteration alone. If gritty Warner Bros. specialized in mean streets and threadbare apartments and glitzy MGM spent big on grand hotels and emerald cities, Paramount transported moviegoers into realms of dreamy exoticism, allegedly set in Vienna, Budapest or St. Petersburg, but conjured with better-than-the-original costuming, set design, lighting and dialogue. In an age before jumbo jets, who was to quibble over verisimilitude?

A new version of Paramount looks to be a-borning: Controlling stakeholder Shari Redstone may put her company on the auction block. Whatever conglomerate or mogul buys the assets, it’ll...

Emma Thompson holds a distinct Oscars record. She is the only person in the history of the Academy Awards to win for both acting and writing. She took home the Best Actress trophy in 1993 for “Howard’s End.” Three years later, she collected an Oscar bookend with her Best Adapted Screenplay win for bringing Jane Austen‘s 1811 novel “Sense and Sensibility” to the screen.

Prior to Thompson’s double wins, several others contended for both acting and writing. Orson Welles won Best Original Screenplay in 1942 with Herman J. Mankiewicz for “Citizen Kane.” He also picked up a Best Actor nomination for the same film. Warren Beatty has a rich history in both acting and writing awards. He was nominated for Best Actor in 1968 for “Bonnie & Clyde,” in 1979 for “Heaven Can Wait, in 1982 for “Reds,” and in 1992″ for “Bugsy.” He picked up Original Screenplay bids in 1976 for “Shampoo” (shared with...

"If The Headline Is Big Enough, It Makes The News Big Enough." - Citizen Kane explores the power of media sensationalism and manipulating public perception. "I Only Saw Her For One Second." - The quote reflects the lasting impact of a beautiful moment and the power of memory in a person's life. "I Just Try Everything I Can Think Of." - Kane's ambitious and reckless approach to media and life ultimately costs him happiness and contentment.

Citizen Kane is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and it's filled with iconic and memorable quotes. The film is largely the product of Orson Welles, the 20th-century film icon who wrote it, produced it, directed it, and starred in it as the titular character. Citizen Kane tells the story of Charles Foster Kane from the perspective of a reporter investigating his life after he's passed away, exploring the meaning of his enigmatic final words.

Sylvester Stallone and Charlie Chaplin are the only two artists to receive nominations in both the Best Screenplay and Best Actor categories at the Academy Awards. Stallone holds the record for being the last actor to achieve this feat, as no one else has been able to repeat it since 1977. Stallone's film "Rocky" earned more nominations and won more Academy Awards than Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," highlighting his significant contributions to cinema.

Both Sylvester Stallone and Charlie Chaplin share an impressive Hollywood record. When it comes to Sylvester Stallone's tenure as a film star, life has imitated art. Just like the underdog Rocky took the world of boxing by storm after putting his heart and unbreakable spirit on full display against Apollo Creed, Stallone became an overnight rags-to-riches story after Rocky's success catapulted him to fame. Since then, he has only stacked achievement after achievement with his roles in some...

The Killer director David Fincher has stepped into the breach between Hollywood studios and streamers and striking actors and writers by urging both sides to return to the negotiating table.

“It’s very sad for me. I can understand both sides. All we can do is encourage people to talk,” Fincher said while at the Venice Film Festival to launch his Netflix assassin movie on Sunday. Recalling The Killer was made during the pandemic and that industry disruption, the director expressed regret that SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America members had now set down tools again.

“I’m very sad obviously. I sit in the middle of both parties,” Fincher added as his hard-boiled noir for Netflix is premiering in competition in Venice. The Killer focuses on the titular assassin played by lead Michael Fassbender, who was not in Venice to help launch the movie. His character gets embroiled in...

Throughout the 2010s, Michael Fassbender starred in everything from the X-Men franchise, a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Assassin’s Creed, and a Steve Jobs biopic. David Fincher’s The Killer will be the actor’s first film since 2019, and the first trailer shows Fassbender in all his ruthless glory.

Fassbender last appeared on the big screen in 2019’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Since he last portrayed Magneto, the actor has kept busy by driving race cars, currently racing in the European Le Mans Series. Now, with the first trailer being released on Netflix's YouTube, fans can get a taste of his performance in Fincher’s latest film. Based on the French graphic novel of the same name, The Killer follows an assassin who “battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.”

Related: David Fincher's Films Ranked, According to Critics

Fassbender made his feature film debut in 300,...

Michael Fassbender is coming to terms with his deadly past in the first teaser trailer for The Killer, the new Netflix feature from filmmaker David Fincher.

Released Tuesday, the footage offers the first glimpse at the movie that hits select theaters Oct. 27 before making its Netflix debut Nov. 10. The cast includes Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, Sophie Charlotte and Tilda Swinton.

The Killer focuses on the titular assassin (Fassbender) who gets embroiled in an international manhunt after a previous job that went wrong.

Fincher directs from a script by Andrew Kevin Walker (Seven), and the project counts Ceán Chaffin as a producer. The Killer adapts the graphic novel series of the same name from writer Alexis Nolent (aka Matz) and illustrator Luc Jacamon that was initially published in French by Editions Casterman.

The film premieres in competition at the Venice Film Festival on Sept. 3.

The Killer continues Fincher’s relationship with...

After Netflix released the first trailer for Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro,” a biographical romance about Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre, many viewers took issue with Cooper’s large prosthetic nose, deeming it the latest example of Hollywood’s stereotypical or inauthentic portrayal of Jewish people, known as “Jewface.”

But in a statement posted to Bernstein’s Twitter account, the late conductor’s children defended Cooper’s decision to “use makeup to amplify his resemblance” to their father. Cooper directed “Maestro” and stars as Bernstein opposite Carey Mulligan as Montealegre.

“Bradley Cooper included the three of us along every step of his amazing journey as he made his film about our father,” wrote Jamie, Alexander and Nina Bernstein. “We were touched to the core to witness the depth of his commitment, his loving embrace of our father’s music, and the sheer open-hearted joy he brought to his exploration.

Filmmakers Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini got their start with a documentary about a famous Los Angeles restaurant called "Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's," but broke through the world of narrative features with "American Splendor," a comedy biopic starring Paul Giamatti about the underground comic book writer, Harvey Pekar. At the 93rd Academy Awards, Amanda Seyfried snagged a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her work in "Mank," David Fincher's biopic of Herman J. Mankiewicz released by Netflix. In the year that followed, Berman and Plucini linked up with Seyfried and Netflix to make "Things Heard and Seen" based on the novel "All Things Cease to Appear" by Elizabeth Brundage.

Seyfried was cast as the star, but she was joined by "Stranger Things" favorite Natalia Dyer, "Better Call Saul" standout Rhea Seehorn, Karen Allen of "Indiana Jones" fame, Academy Award-winner F. Murray Abraham, Academy Award-nominee Michael O'Keefe,...

Exclusive: The hammer just went down over the weekend on the one and only Oscar win for Citizen Kane, a 1941 movie many still consider the crown jewel of Hollywood, the greatest ever made.

In a Heritage Auctioneers “Hollywood Entertainment” auction that among many other items featured several from the career of Kane’s star, director and co-writer Orson Welles, the prize get was his 1941 Oscar for Original Screenplay that he shared with Herman Mankiewicz. Of the film’s nine nominations including Picture, Director and Actor for Welles, it was the single victory for the movie (How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture). The Welles statuette had a starting bid of $250,000 and sold to an unknown bidder for $645,000 (inclusive of buyer’s premium).

It, uh, gets a little complicated from there.

Heritage Auctions

This is not the original Oscar statuette that Welles — who didn’t even attend the actual ceremony — won.

The Killer, the latest film by acclaimed director David Fincher, is set to have its world premiere at the 80th Venice Film Festival, which will run from August 30 to September 9, 2023. The film is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Matz and Luc Jacamon, and stars Michael Fassbender as a cold-blooded assassin who begins to question his morality and purpose.

The film is one of the most anticipated titles in the festival’s main competition, which will also feature new works by Wes Anderson, Jane Campion, Paolo Sorrentino, and Asghar Farhadi, among others. The festival’s artistic director Alberto Barbera praised Fincher’s film as “a masterful adaptation of a noir comic that explores the dark side of human nature with a sharp and captivating style”.

The Killer Cast

The Killer marks Fincher’s return to the big screen after his Oscar-nominated biopic Mank (2020), which chronicled the...

A version of this story about Gary Oldman and “Slow Horses” first ran in the drama issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

Here is how the world was introduced to Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb, distinguished British spy: He is asleep on the couch in his office, a wreck of a room littered with half-drunk bottles of booze, overflowing ashtrays and the remains of several fast-food take-out meals. The camera pulls in, rests a beat on his holey-socked feet, and then: He rips a fart so uproarious, it jolts him upright, yanking him out of his slumber.

This is not the suave world of British spies epitomized by James Bond and John le Carré’s George Smiley (who Oldman played in 2011’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”). This is “Slow Horses,” Apple TV+’s viciously funny espionage thriller about MI5 agents sent to a purgatorial outpost called Slough House, where they...

Fund also supports Rubika Shah and Vero Cratzborn projects.

New projects by Ildikó Enyedi, Rubika Shah and Vero Cratzborn have been backed by the Cnc and Ffa’s Franco-German co-production fund at its first session of 2023.

A total of €450,000 production support was awarded to Enyedi’s next feature Silent Friend which has been structured as a co-production between lead producer Cologne-based Pandora Film with France’s Galatée Films, Hungary’s Inforg M&m Film and China’s Rediance Films.

The film focuses on an ancient tree in the Botanical Gardens of the university town of Marburg to explore the relationship between man and nature.

Fund also supports Rubika Shah and Vero Cratzborn projects.

New projects by Ildikó Enyedi, Rubika Shah and Vero Cratzborn have been backed by the Cnc and Ffa’s Franco-German co-production fund at its first session of 2023.

A total of €450,000 production support was awarded to Enyedi’s next feature Silent Friend which has been structured as a co-production between lead producer Cologne-based Pandora Film with France’s Galatée Films, Hungary’s Inforg M&m Film and China’s Rediance Films.

The film focuses on an ancient tree in the Botanical Gardens of the university town of Marburg to explore the relationship between man and nature.

One of the most time-consuming aspects of being a cinephile is worrying about the health and longevity of TCM. The venerable broadcast television channel dedicated to classic Hollywood cinema has grown since its 1994 launch into a kind of preservationist and enthusiast's empire that includes an annual film festival, an original film distribution arm, a releasing imprint, and a slew of diverse programming initiatives (not to mention a wine club). TCM certainly seems to be in better health than most entities dedicated segments of the film ecosystem that are -- by virtue of not being focused on the biggest, brightest, latest thing -- not exactly profit drivers. It has survived both a massive merger between AT&T and its parent company, Time Warner, and a subsequent divestment of AT&T and acquisition by Discovery in all but five years, after all.

But the brand's new overlord, Warner Bros. Discovery, shelving completed films...

Citizen Kane follows the rise and fall of ambitious publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, and its ending brings the story back to the start in a well-structured mystery narrative. The lead character, played by Orson Welles, who also directed the 1941 feature, dies at the beginning of the plot, breathing his last breath as he says the ominous word "rosebud." His last word leads to an investigation deep into his scandalous life, but only the film's audience is treated to a definitive, albeit still puzzling answer.

Called the greatest movie ever made, Citizen Kane plays out as a pseudo-biopic as viewers are led through Kane's entire life story, from his childhood in Colorado to his rise as a yellow journalism tycoon and a politician in New York, eventually building up to his demise at his colossal mansion, Xanadu. The way “rosebud” links the beginning to the end was quite a unique plot point in its time,...

At the second annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1996, 32-year-old Nicolas Cage (“Leaving Las Vegas”) supplanted inaugural Best Film Actor recipient Tom Hanks and became the category’s youngest winner. Although his standing has been threatened in recent years by Taron Egerton (“Rocketman”), Timothée Chalamet (“Call Me By Your Name”), and Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out”), the record remains intact nearly three decades later. This year, however, he could finally be knocked down a spot on the list if Austin Butler (31) succeeds on his freshman solo bid for “Elvis.”

Butler is part of only the seventh Best Actor lineup in SAG Awards history to exclusively consist of newcomers to the category. He does have one Best Film Ensemble nomination under his belt, as do two of his competitors: Brendan Fraser and Bill Nighy. Fraser, who triumphed alongside his “Crash” cast mates, is currently nominated for “The Whale,” while Nighy’s first...

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have unveiled that they are scoring David Fincher’s next film, an adaptation of the French graphic novel The Killer, showing they are indeed all in this together now.

In a recent post on nin.com promoting the deluxe, three-lp release of their Mank soundtrack, Reznor and Ross nonchalantly teased that they will work with Fincher for a fifth time on The Killer, which comes to Netflix on November 10th.

David Fincher announced The Killer for Netflix back in 2021, the year after his biopic on Citizen Kane co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz hit the streaming service. The Killer is about “an elite assassin who suffers a psychological crisis as he attempts to remove himself from the political ramifications his killings have caused.” That Reznor and Ross would work with Fincher again is no surprise, considering they have scored every one of his films since 2010’s The Social Network.

When we talk about movies, screenwriters don't get enough credit. Their names are often overlooked while directors are treated as the true auteurs. Maybe part of that stems from the system of Hollywood itself, which tends to leave screenwriters low on the totem pole, with "Mank" even likening Herman J. Mankiewicz — the co-writer of "Citizen Kane" — to a mere "organ grinder's monkey."

Superhero films and other big studio tentpoles with a lot riding on their success can sometimes involve a revolving door of screenwriters, and this has been the case for decades. "Superman: The Movie" had four credited writers, three of whom carried over to the sequel, "Superman II." But one name you won't see credited as a screenwriter in either movie, despite his important writing contributions, is that of Mank's nephew, Tom Mankiewicz.

There's a rather complicated reason for that. For both "Superman" and "Superman II," Tom Mankiewicz did...

Orson Welles directed Citizen Kane in 1941. This film features Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten

Citizen Kane is one of those landmark movies in the History of Cinema because of the melancholic overtunes and the rivers of ink (which weren´t so necessary) that the movie caused for reasons we will explain below even though it is too evident to me to explain them again.

Story line

The life of the press mogul Charles Foster Kane, based on the figure of W.R. Hearst.

The Stoty with Hearst Citizen Kane (1941)

For many years it was considered to be the best movie in the History of Movies, for other things besides its merits, which are brutal too. Indeed: This is not even the best movie of its director but the gamble was perfect with the use of the marketing strategy.

The film is created after Welles created a sensation with the broadcasting...

Find out where to watch David Fincher’s cult classic "Fight Club," a searing exploration of contemporary masculinity and the walls it puts up against experiencing healthy emotions and relationships.

"Fight Club" follows an unnamed protagonist as he attempts to deal with his insomnia in increasingly destructive ways that eventually throws his life completely off the rails.

Fight Club's Origin

The story of "Fight Club" comes from a book of the same name by author Chuck Palahniuk, released three years prior to the film in 1996. Palahniuk wrote his debut novel in his spare time when working as a mechanic. The concept sprung from wanting to create a discussion about masculinity and consumerism, however, the idea wasn’t crystallized for him until a camping trip went wrong.

Watch Fight Club On Amazon Prime Now.

After asking fellow campers to turn down their music, Palahniuk got into a physical altercation that...

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Based on New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s account of their harpooning of the powerhouse producer and loathsome sexual predator Harvey Weinstein, Maria Schrader’s She Said had a lot going for it: two congenial performers (Carey Mulligan as Twohey and Zoe Kazan as Kantor); a narrative fixation on the target of opportunity; and the cathartic satisfactions of justice served, eventually.

Yet She Said was also — not to bury the lede — a bit pedantic and procedural. Journalism here is serious business — akin to a sacred vocation, actually — and its practitioners are straitlaced and earnest.

This is not the way Hollywood traditionally portrayed members of the Fourth Estate. The ink-stained progenitors of today’s digital crusaders were crude, irreverent, and often inebriated. They didn’t want to change the world or give voice to the voiceless; they wanted to crush the competition by any sneaky,...

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Seventy-five years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (Huac for purposes of pronunciation) launched the first of its series of postwar investigations into alleged communist subversion in Hollywood.

The show trial was staged from Oct. 20 to 30, 1947, and you can probably rewind the newsreel images in your mind’s eye: the unhinged committee chairman, J. Parnell Thomas (D-n.J.), yelling over witnesses and furiously pounding his gavel; the compliant straight men accusing former colleagues of the most unpatriotic heresies in Cold War America; and the backtalking recalcitrants being hauled away from the witness table mid-harangue.

In countless documentaries and fictional reenactments, the confrontations are cast as a morality play pitting the craven Friendlies (as those who named names and sucked up to the committee are called) against the defiant Unfriendlies, who refused to cower before their inquisitors and would soon to be immortalized...

When an ambitious, first-time filmmaker pulls off a cinematic coup, critics and jealous industry veterans have a penchant for working overtime to undermine their achievement. You need look no further than "Citizen Kane," the genius of which has, over the years, been ascribed to cinematographer Gregg Toland, screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, and editor Robert Wise. Surely, Welles, who only revolutionized radio and stagecraft, couldn't have transformed yet another medium!

But when an ambitious, first-time filmmaker faceplants, everyone in a position to claim credit skedaddles like cockroaches at the flick of a light switch. The cast and crew were at the mercy of a misguided fool. They did their jobs as directed, and couldn't wait to move on to the next show.

This is the way of things in Hollywood. So it's strange that John Wayne spent the last nineteen years of his life fighting to assert authorship of the poorly...

At a glance, "Mank" might seem like an odd film for David Fincher to make. The director broke his streak of lurid crime thrillers for a biopic about the co-writer of "Citizen Kane" -- and not even Orson Welles, but Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman). Fincher's reason for making the movie was personal: His late father, Jack, wrote the screenplay and wanted his son to direct the movie.

Jack Fincher was a journalist by trade; the peak of his career was serving as San Francisco Bureau Chief at Life Magazine. When he retired in the early 1990s, he decided to follow his son into...

The post David Fincher Didn't Hold Back On His Father's First Draft Of Mank appeared first on /Film.

“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine”

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Drive-in in Chaffee, Mo has become another great St. Louis-area place to see old movies (Chaffee is about 120 miles south of St. Louis). This Friday April 8th, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Drive-in is screening Casablanca double feature Citizen Kane. Gates open at 6:30 pm, and the movies begin at 8:00 pm. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Drive-in’s site can be found Here. Their other screen is showing The Hunger Games (PG-13) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (PG)

I there was ever a film deserved to be considered a classic then Casablanca is it, Even if you haven’t seen it before you’ll recognize much of the dialogue; it is probably the most quoted, and misquoted, film of all time. Humphrey Bogart is excellent in...

Two years ago, siblings Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell shared in four Grammy wins for the album “When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” (Album of the Year; Best Pop Vocal Album) and its single “Bad Guy” (Record of the Year; Song of the Year). Now, they have concurrently earned their first Oscar nominations for co-writing the song “No Time to Die” for the James Bond film of the same name. If they prevail later this month, they will become the fourth brother-sister pair to both be honored by the academy and the first to win for the same film.

The first brother-sister Oscar champs and first sibling winners overall were Douglas Shearer and Norma Shearer. In 1930, he triumphed in the Best Sound category for “The Big House” while she took the Best Actress prize for “The Divorcee.” They were followed by Lionel Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore, who respectively...

In upcoming biopic “Golda,” Helen Mirren plays former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir during the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when Israel was invaded by a coalition of Arab states on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

While Mirren is not Jewish, “Golda” is directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guy Nattiv (“Skin”), who is both Jewish and Israeli, and written by British screenwriter Nicholas Martin (“Florence Foster Jenkins”), who has previously worked with the organization U.K. Jewish Film.

But in the U.K., where production wrapped last month, Mirren’s casting as one of history’s most heroic Jewish women has caused some disquiet. Actor Maureen Lipman (“The Pianist”) highlighted the discussion about what has been termed “Jewface” when she told a newspaper she “disagreed” with Mirren’s casting “because the Jewishness of the character is so integral. I’m sure she will be marvellous, but it would never be...