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This April, Max is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the highly anticipated return of the post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us to the streaming release of Nicole Kidman‘s erotic thriller film Babygirl. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Max next month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 5 best films coming to Max in April 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Aftersun (April 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95% Credit – A24

Aftersun is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Charlotte Wells. The 2022 film follows Sophie Patterson as she reflects on the last she took with her father at the age of 11-year-old at a fading resort. Sophie tries to come to terms with the image of her...

Those look for a libido-juicing kick at this year’s Cannes Film Festival surely found it in “Motel Destino,” the sexually explicit erotic thriller from Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz.

Competing in the main competition once again after “Invisible Life” and “Firebrand,” Aïnouz returned to his native Brazil to shoot this perverse psychosexual triangle about the owners of a sex motel along the country’s northeastern Atlantic coast, and the criminal drifter who disrupts their lives. The wild-haired Dayana (Nataly Rocha) operates the Motel Destino with her abusive husband Elias (Fábio Assunção), where she takes up an unhinged affair with Heraldo (Iago Xavier), and amid nonstop sucking and fucking, plot to kill Elias in the grand tradition of the great noirs. Except it’s a noir with a post-Hays Code, liberated twist that has rocked Cannes with its strong, pervasive sexual content, to use the language of the American Motion Picture Association’s ratings board.

Motel Destino, directed by Karim Aïnouz, begins with a burst of energy and intrigue, setting up a promising neo-noir thriller set against the vibrant backdrop of Northeastern Brazil. The film follows Heraldo (Iago Xavier) and his brother, whose favorite pastime of beach outings and capoeira practice belies their darker side as petty criminals indebted to a local madam. Their latest assignment — a high-stakes murder — plunges them into a realm of danger and desperation. However, despite its gripping start and lush cinematography, the film ultimately loses its way, bogged down by a sluggish middle act and narrative inconsistencies.

The brothers are tasked with assassinating a Frenchman in exchange for freedom from their debt. Before the mission, Heraldo decides to unwind at a nightclub, where he meets a mysterious woman who leads him to Motel Destino. After a night of passion, he awakens to find her gone, his money stolen and himself locked in the room.

Cannes film festival

A young man on the run from a mob boss lands an unlikely job in a brutally functional love motel and starts a passionate affair with the manager’s wife

As motel names go, it’s certainly more portentous than “Bates”. But destiny of a sort, shaped by class and money and family abuse, is waiting for the hero and heroine of this movie. This is an erotic noir thriller from Karim Aïnouz; a noir lit mostly by bright sunshine, shot with garish glee by Hélène Louvart. It takes place in a brutally functional love motel near the beach in the north-eastern Brazilian state of Ceará; this is a place from which the couple are fated to be expelled naked, like Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

Motel Destino is co-written by Wislan Esmeraldo and Mauricio Zacharias and directed by Aïnouz who had a film...

Karim Aïnouz is harnessing the sweaty desire of corruption for his latest erotic thriller “Motel Destino.”

The Brazilian filmmaker returns to his native country for the feature, which was shot entirely in Aïnouz’s homeland of Ceará. “Motel Destino” stars Iago Xavier and Nataly Rocha, who were selected from an extensive casting process, and renowned Brazilian actor Fabio Assunção.

Per the official synopsis, neon-hued Motel Destino is a roadside sex hotel under the burning blue skies of the Northeastern coast of Brazil, run by the boorish Elias and his frustrated, beautiful wife Dayana. When 21-year-old Heraldo finds himself at the motel, after messing up a hit and going on the run from both the police and the gang he let down, Dayana finds herself intrigued and lets him stay. As the two navigate a dance of power, desire and liberation, a dangerous plan for freedom emerges. In this tropical noir,...

Karim Aïnouz is following up his 2023 English-language debut “Firebrand” with a return to his Brazilian roots.

For his second consecutive Cannes premiere, Aïnouz helmed erotic thriller “Motel Destino” which will screen in competition at the festival. “Motel Destino” is Aïnouz’s sixth Cannes premiere, with his 2019 feature “Invisible Life” winning the Un Certain Regard award.

“Motel Destino” stars Iago Xavier and Nataly Rocha, who were selected from an extensive casting process, and renowned Brazilian actor Fabio Assunção. The official synopsis reads: “The neon-hued Motel Destino is a roadside sex hotel under the burning blue skies of the Northeastern coast of Brazil, run by the boorish Elias and his frustrated, beautiful wife Dayana. When 21-year-old Heraldo finds himself at the motel, after messing up a hit and going on the run from both the police and the gang he let down, Dayana finds herself intrigued and lets him stay. As the...

Searchlight’s All of Us Strangers leads the 2024 Dorian Awards film nominations with nine, followed by the Warner Bros juggernaut Barbie with seven. Netflix’s May December is next with six noms, A24’s Past Lives (five) and Searchlight’s Poor Things (four). All five will compete for the marquee Best Film of the Year prize, presented by Galeca: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics.

All of Us Strangers will face off against MGM’s Bottoms, Mubi/Sbs’ Passages, Netfix’s Rustin (Netflix and Amazon MGM’s Saltburn for LGBTQ Film of the Year.

The Director of the Year race pits Oscar-snubbed Barbie helmer Greta Gerwig against Andrew Haigh (All of Us Strangers), Todd Haynes (May December), Christopher Nolan (Universal’s Oppenheimer) and Celine Song (Past Lives).

Along with such offbeat categories as Campy Flick and Unsung Film of the year, the Dorians will debut three new ones in 2024: LGBTQ Screenplay of the Year,...

Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” led nominations Monday for the 15th Dorian Film Awards, as voted on by the Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, with nine nominations, including Film of the Year, LGBTQ Film of the Year, Director of the Year, co-lead Andrew Scott and supporting actress Claire Foy.

The group’s more than 500 entertainment critics and journalists also handed out nods to “Barbie,” which scored seven nominations; followed by Todd Haynes’ “May December” with six; and Celine Song’s “Past Lives” with five, including Director of the Year.

While the Oscars overlooked “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig this year, she’s very much in the running at this awards show, as is Song, Haynes, and Haigh.

“Bottoms” star Ayo Edebiri, who just collected her first Emmy for “The Bear,” is nominated in two categories: “We’re Wilde About You!” Rising Star Award and Wilde Artist Award, given to...

Galeca: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics announced the nominees of the 15th Dorian Film Awards, and Searchlight’s All of Us Strangers leads the nominations with nine.

The Andrew Haigh-written and -directed drama earned nods for film of the year, LGBTQ film of the year and genre film of the year, with Haigh also landing nods for best director and best screenplay. Andrew Scott was nominated for his lead performance, while Claire Foy and Paul Mescal are both nominated in best supporting performance. (The Dorians’ acting categories are gender neutral, with 10 contenders in both categories.)

Following in All of Us Strangers‘ lead is Warner Bros.’ Barbie, which scored seven noms, including film of the year, best director for Greta Gerwig (also nominated for writing the screenplay with partner Noah Baumbach), best supporting performance (Ryan Gosling) and best film music.

The three remaining film of the year nominees are Netflix’s May December,...

Final five nominations to be announced on November 2.

Steve McQueen’s Occupied City, Justine Triet’s Anatomy Of A Fall and Todd Haynes’ May December are among the titles on the latest British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) longlists, for Best Feature Documentary and Best International Independent Film.

15 films are on the documentary longlist, with five of them by first-time directors; with 17 films on the international list.

Scroll down for the longlists

Alongside McQueen’s film combining analysis of Amsterdam during the Second World War with the present day, documentary titles include Kevin MacDonald’s High & Low: John Galliano about the...

I love it when a movie drops you right in the middle of the story. There is no set-up or explanation; you have just become a part of a conversation or an activity that has already started. If it is done right, then you soon become a part of the movie’s world while you are still figuring out who’s who and what’s going on. Honestly, it’s actually quite fun and only enhances the quality of the entire movie experience. Ira Sach’s Passages opens with a director trying to make his actor do a scene right. The actor appears to be quite stiff, which effectively makes something as simple as coming down a staircase a herculean task. We soon find out that the actor, Martin, and the director, Tomas, happen to be a married couple. Martin is sort of awkward and keeps it himself, while Tomas is exuberant and assertive.

Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski are brilliantly believable in Ira Sachs’s exploration of a gay marriage that’s challenged when one partner has a passionate affair with a young woman

In writer-director Ira Sachs’s 2014 charmer Love Is Strange, John Lithgow and Alfred Molina play a long-term couple whose same-sex marriage causes one of them to lose their job, temporarily forcing them apart. It’s a sweet-natured affair that won the hearts of audiences and critics alike, with the American Association of Retired Persons delightfully citing it as the “best grownup love story” of the year.

There’s a similar bittersweetness at the heart of Sachs’s latest gay marriage story (co-written with regular collaborator Mauricio Zacharias), although this time it’s wedded to a rather more candid portrayal of physical and emotional intimacy. Franz Rogowski and Ben Whishaw are brilliantly believable as Tomas and Martin, a German film-maker and English graphic artist respectively,...

Director Ira Sachs and lead Franz Rogowski discussed their film “Passages” at an exclusive screening in London on Friday.

The screening was the first of a series of exclusive Q&a events curated by Variety in partnership with brand and culture consultancy Bsbp targeted at BAFTA and AMPAS voters as well as key players in the showbiz community in the U.K., taking place at London’s The Cinema at Selfridges. Variety and Bsbp teamed with film distributor, global streaming service and production company Mubi for the first screening in the series, “Passages,” written and directed by Sachs.

The screening was accompanied by a Q&a conducted by Variety critic Guy Lodge with Sachs and Rogowski. The sexually frank relationship drama, about a polysexual Parisian love triangle, also stars Ben Whishaw and Adele Exarchopoulos, and premiered to great acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival, also playing at the Berlinale. It...

This is Day 115 of the WGA strike and Day 42 of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

“I can’t believe I’m headlining this,” Tony Gilroy quipped Thursday as the last speaker at a Writers Guild picket in New York City honoring screenwriters. The Andor creator-writer and Bourne Legacy screenwriter followed three of his contemporaries — former WGA East President Beau Willimon, Mauricio Zacharias and James Hart — in delivering pep talks steeped in Hollywood labor history to more than 300 demonstrators outside Warner Bros. Disney and Netflix offices.

“We cannot be weak,” Gilroy told a picket line that also included actors John Turturro, Jamie Oliver, Stephen Lang and Michael Cyril Creighton. Staying strong was a theme of speeches coming after negotiations between the Writers Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers appeared to collapse this week.

Related: 15 Movies About Labor Unions And Strikes – Photo Gallery

The current film and television writers...

A love triangle with a twist offers shape to the latest relationship drama from Ira Sachs, co-writen with his regular collaborator Mauricio Zacharias. Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is a high maintenance film director. At the start of the film, he tells his actor: “This is a transition moment, but you’re making it into a drama moment.” A sentiment that is a signpost for Sachs’ entire film.

It soon emerges that almost every moment is a “drama moment” for Tomas. When his husband Martin (played with customary fragile delicacy by Ben Whishaw) leaves the film’s wrap party early, Tomas decides on an apparent whim to first dance with, then sleep with Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a young woman who is hot off a break up.

While that might sound like the “drama moment”, it's not even the emotional equivalent of the nursery slopes for Tomas, who immediately goes home and declares to Martin:.

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Scott Thompson on Wbgr-fm on August 9th, reviewing “Passages,” directed by Ira Sachs and featuring Ben Whishaw. In theaters since August 11th.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

“Passages” is a time tested love triangle set in Paris with a twist. Gay married couple Martin (Ben Whishaw) and filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) are on shaky ground, when Tomas meets Agathe (Adéle Exarcopoulous) and begins an affair. The liaison blossoms into romance, which has Tomas moving out of his husband’s apartment. This begins an indecisive cycle for Tomas, whether he wants to complete the journey with Agathe or go back to Martin.

”Passages” is in theaters since August 11th, including Chicago’s (click link) Music Box Theatre. Featuring Ben Whishaw, Franz Rogowski, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Erwan Kepoa Falé and Arcardi Radeff. Written by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias. Directed by Ira Sachs. Rated “R...

Karim Aïnouz’s “Motel Destino,” which began filming last week, has eroticism, a recurring element in his films, as the backdrop. The Match Factory is selling the international rights.

His eighth fiction feature marks a return to the director’s Brazilian roots after having shot his first English-language production, “Firebrand,” starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law, which played in competition at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Aïnouz won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes in 2019 for “Invisible Life.”

“Motel Destino” is an “intimate picture of a youth whose future has been stolen by a toxic and oppressive elite, against which rebellion and violence are often the only possible way out,” according to a press statement.

“‘Motel Destino’ is, above all, a love story,” Aïnouz said. “The love between a peripheral young man who lives against a system that wants him dead and a woman who resists the attacks...

Karim Aïnouz has begun the Brazil shoot of erotic thriller Motel Destino, in a return to his roots after English-language drama Firebrand starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law.

The new feature began filming in the Brazilian-Algerian filmmaker’s native region of Ceará in north-eastern Brazil on July 31.

The Match Factory, which already represents several of Aïnouz’s films such as Mariner of the Mountains (2021), Invisible Life (2019) and Praia do Futuro (2014), has announced its acquisition of the international sales rights as shooting gets underway.

Motel Destino marks Aïnouz’s eighth feature after Firebrand, which world premiered in Competition in Cannes this year, and 2019 Un Certain Regard winner The Invisible Life.

The director says the film’s motel setting is “the main character of the plot”, describing it as an intersection for chronic issues of contemporary Brazil in which the future of the country’s youth has been stolen by a toxic and oppressive elite,...

Project marks a return to the Brazilian director’s roots after his first English language production, Firebrand, debuted in Competition at Cannes this year.

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz has started shooting his eighth fiction feature, Motel Destino which is being sold internationally by The Match Factory.

The project marks a return to the director’s roots after his first English language production, Firebrand starring Alicia Vikander and Jude Law, debuted in Cannes Competition this year.

Motel Destino is being shot in the Brazilian state of Ceará, the director’s home state, and features two local talents, Iago Xavier and Nataly Rocha...

After world premiering at Sundance earlier this year, a teaser trailer has dropped for director Ira Sachs’s Passages. Co-written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, the film will arrive in theaters later this summer. An official synopsis reads: After completing his latest project, filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) impulsively begins a heated love affair with a young schoolteacher, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). For Tomas, the novelty of being with a woman is an exciting experience that he is eager to explore despite his marriage to Martin (Ben Whishaw). But when Martin begins his own affair, the mercurial Tomas refocuses his attentions on his […]

The post Trailer Watch: Ira Sachs’s Passages first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

After world premiering at Sundance earlier this year, a teaser trailer has dropped for director Ira Sachs’s Passages. Co-written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, the film will arrive in theaters later this summer. An official synopsis reads: After completing his latest project, filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) impulsively begins a heated love affair with a young schoolteacher, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). For Tomas, the novelty of being with a woman is an exciting experience that he is eager to explore despite his marriage to Martin (Ben Whishaw). But when Martin begins his own affair, the mercurial Tomas refocuses his attentions on his […]

The post Trailer Watch: Ira Sachs’s Passages first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Passages, directed by Ira Sachs and co-written by his creative partner Mauricio Zacharias, is a testament to how complicated a relationship with a narcissist can get. Said narcissist is the German director Tomas (Franz Rogowski), who flits about to the beat of his own passionate drum despite his marriage to Martin (No Time to Die star Ben Whishaw). When he embarks on his first full-blown relationship with a woman, Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), all three parties suffer the consequences.

Whishaw may be British, but that is rather different from being European, at least according to his performance standards. Passages very much pursues a European aesthetic, approaching intimacy with an openness that shocks American as well as British audiences, and Sachs' directing style certainly contributes to that.

Related: The Pod Generation Director On Emilia Clarke & Chiwetel Ejiofor's Chemistry [Sundance]

Screen Rant caught up with the stars of Passages, Rogowski and Whishaw, and director...

“I had sex with a woman last night,” says Tomas (Franz Rogowski) to his partner, Martin (Ben Whishaw). “Can I tell you about it?” This is a place they’ve been before. Martin says that it happens whenever Tomas, a filmmaker, finishes a movie. And this is fine. It is what it is. All of the fights they’ve had to this point, all of the fights that they’re about to have, both because of this transgression and because of the others that are promised to come — all of it,...

Taking the Scorsese wisdom of “more than 90 of directing a picture is the right casting” to heart, Ira Sachs’ radiantly sexual three-hander Passages couldn’t have assembled a finer trio of actors to explore modern love in all its splendor and messiness. Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a German filmmaker finishing up his latest shoot, is married to Martin (Ben Whishaw), but when Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) comes into Tomas’ life, his world is torn asunder with a fiery passion. In his most mature and focused work to date, Sachs stays mostly centered on Tomas as his shifting heart gets pulled in different directions, Rogowski’s fierce magnetism transfixing the viewer even as his character’s behavior grows all the more erratic.

Inspired by the love triangle of Luchino Visconti’s final film The Innocent, Sachs doesn’t operate on a similarly operatic level, but both films do carry a shared sense of...

With “Passages,” American indie darling Ira Sachs (“Love Is Strange”) makes his first film in France, a brutally honest portrait of a train-wreck relationship, in which an openly gay director sabotages his marriage — and maybe his life — by falling for a woman. Affairs happen, that’s nothing new. But this one proves unusually destructive, giving three stellar international actors — German actor Franz Rogowski (“Great Freedom”), Ben Whishaw (“The Lobster”) and Adèle Exarchopoulos (“Blue Is the Warmest Color”) — a chance to tear one another’s hearts to shreds. Domestic interest will be limited, as it always is with Sachs’ shoestring heart-tuggers, but having his last movie, “Frankie,” selected for Cannes should give “Passages” a certain entrée in Europe.

Like a less-tyrannical, latter-day Fassbinder, queer auteur Tomas (Rogowski) is used to calling the shots. On set, the cast and crew put up with his tantrums. At home, longtime partner Martin (Whishaw) humors his needy husband’s caprices.

There are unlikable protagonists, and then there’s Tomas, the tragicomically insufferable narcissist at the center of Ira Sachs’ Passages. A German film director living in Paris, Tomas is, to borrow an overused term, “toxic” — a guy who lies and leeches, connives and cajoles, fucks and finagles his way through the world, his talent and impish, overcaffeinated magnetism clearing the path.

The most endearing thing about Tomas is how utterly decipherable his awfulness is. The fragility of his ego and his insatiable need to be not just desired, but revered, coddled, stimulated — you name it — are so evident as to be almost touching. (If it wasn’t clear: Folks who require niceness in a main character, this one’s not for you.)

Played by a sensational Franz Rogowski (Transit, Great Freedom), Tomas is also an undeniable force of nature. That goes a long way toward explaining the grip he has...

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Mubi releases the film in limited theaters on Friday, August 4, with expansion to follow.

Not long into Ira Sachs’ “Passages” — sometime all too shortly after a restless, self-involved filmmaker (Franz Rogowski) leaves his much softer husband (Ben Whishaw) for the earthy and new woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos) he meets at a dance club after a stressful day of shooting — Tomas launches into a post-coital chat by telling Agathe that he’s fallen in love with her. “I bet you say that a lot,” she replies, bluntly sniffing out his bullshit in a way that suggests this Parisian school teacher doesn’t understand how far most artists would go to convince their audience of an emotional truth. “I say it when I mean it,” Tomas counters. “You say it when it works for you,” Agathe volleys back. They’re both right,...

Passages

A project we thought might drop in ’22 is leading the gem offerings from the beginning of ’23 instead. American indie filmmaker Ira Sachs has been working with foreign coin on several projects now and in this case – he lassoed the trio Ben Whishaw, Franz Rogowski and Adèle Exarchopoulos from adjoined countries for what is Passages. Production took place in October of 2021. Saïd Ben Saïd and Michel Merkt produced the project. Josée Deshaies was the cinematographer here.

Gist: Co-written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, set in contemporary Paris, German filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) embraces a love affair with a young woman named Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), an impulse that blurs the lines which define his relationship with his husband, Martin (Ben Whishaw).…...

In preparation for a summer return to in-person artist development labs, the Sundance Institute today named those selected as fellows for its 2022 Directors, Screenwriters and Native Labs.

Creatives developing original work for the screen as part of the Native Lab include Justin Ducharme (Positions), Taietsarón:sere ‘Tai’ Leclaire (How to Deal with Systemic Racism in the Afterlife), Daniel Pewewardy (Residential), Tiare Ribeaux (Huaka’i) and Tim Worrall (Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle Without End).

Those participating in the Directors Lab and/or the Screenwriters Lab include Dina Amer (Cain and Abel), Zandashé Brown (The Matriarch), Caledonia Curry and Meagan Brothers (Sibylant Sisters), Hasan Hadi (The President’s Cake), Michael León and Ashley Alvafez (Crabs in a Barrel), Eliza McNitt (Black Hole), Olive Nwosu (Lady), Neo Sora (Earthquake) and Yuan Yang (Late Spring).

The Native Lab began online from May 2-6 and continues in person from May 9-14, in Santa Fe, Nm, for...

Family gatherings are always a rich vein to tap for drama. Populated by the shadows and echos of every interaction past and made exciting by the risk that one of the many things best left unsaid will come spilling from careless lips.

Unfolding across a single dawdling day, Frankie is just such a story. The family matriarch, Frankie (Isabelle Huppert) has brought her thoroughly modern family – of stepdaughter and son, husbands present and ex and one beloved friend – together in beautiful Sintra, Portugal because it pleases her to do so. They have all obliged because pleasing Frankie is just what they do.

Even in the relative seclusion of Sintra, Frankie cannot pass unrecognised. To the world at large, she is film and television star Françoise Crémont and she seemingly carries a touch of divaish petulance into her personal life too. Every member of the clan has a moment to discreetly...

Isabelle Huppert with her Mrs. Hyde (Madame Hyde) director Serge Bozon Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The first time I talked with Isabelle Huppert at length was in Paris in 2006, when Serge Toubiana introduced us at the Cinémathèque Française (which had then recently opened in the Frank Gehry building at 51 rue de Bercy) private reception for Le Roman D’isabelle, La Femme Mystère. Over the years Isabelle and I have had conversations on her work with Catherine Breillat for Abuse Of Weakness, Guillaume Nicloux’s Valley Of Love with Gérard Depardieu, and Serge Bozon’s Mrs. Hyde (Madame Hyde). In October of last year, I met with Isabelle Huppert in one of the suites of the Four Seasons for a conversation on her starring role in Ira Sachs' Frankie, co-written with longtime collaborator Mauricio Zacharias.

Ilene (Marisa Tomei) with Frankie (Isabelle Huppert)

Patrice Chéreau’s Joseph Conrad adaptation Gabrielle...

With the first of the big year-end holidays less than a week away, those anxieties about huge family gatherings start to kick in. You know, the old conflicts, the scandals, past injustices. We’d repeat that old phrase, “Save the drama for your mama”, but she’s right in the thick of it. Or in the case of this new film, she’s the orchestrator. Like the ensemble cast holiday flicks, she’s setting the stage for some pre-July Fourth fireworks. But in this one, it’s not a major holiday, and it’s far from the old family home and hearth. So, there’s that “travelogue” element to the tale. Literally this family and a couple of friends come from different ends of the Earth at the request (more than a whim) of the matriarch named Frankie.

The title’s actually a nickname for the celebrated international star of stage,...

One of the few benefits of the frenzied awards race is Hollywood’s outpouring of materials associated with the contenders. Perhaps the biggest perk is the release of full scripts one is able to download legally, directly from the studios.

We’ll be updating this post as these and more arrive over the coming months, so bookmark the page, but one can check out everything thus far below. To catch up on the last few years, check out the 2018 screenplays, 2017 screenplays, the 2016 screenplays, 2015 screenplays, 2014 screenplays, and the 2013 screenplays, if they are still available.

After The Wedding (Bart Freundlich – Sony Pictures Classics)

Downton Abbey (Julian Fellowes – Focus Features)

Frankie (Mauricio Zacharias & Ira Sachs – Sony Pictures Classics)

Harriet (Gregory Allen Howard & Kasi Lemmons – Focus Features)

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria – Stx Films)

Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar – Sony Pictures Classics)

The Song of Names (Jeffrey Caine – Sony Pictures Classics)

Us (Jordan Peele – Universal Pictures...

Ira Sachs’ new film Frankie features his largest ensemble to date, featuring newcomers to his world, including Brendan Gleeson and Isabelle Huppert (playing the title character), while also collaborating once again with Marisa Tomei and Greg Kinnear. Through little more than a change of locale–as Frankie’s family vacations in Sintra, Portugal–change is instigated for everyone involved. A marriage on the rocks crumbles, a relationship moving toward engagement stalls out, a first kiss is experienced, and the loss of a partner is mourned.

We spoke with Sachs about the character of Frankie being closer to Isabelle Huppert’s real personality than the characters she is known to play. Sachs also discusses his view of a tangible faith (compared to a faith in things we cannot see) in his movies. Finally, we talk about the influence of Satyajit Ray’s film Kanchenjungha on Frankie and his recently scrapped television projects.

A Death in the Family: Sachs Sacks Huppert in Sun Dappled Soap Opera

The latest film from American director Ira Sachs is set in the lush, sun-dappled climes of Sintra, Portugal, wherein inimitable Isabelle Huppert stars as the eponymous Frankie, a popular film and television star dying of cancer. The various members of her bric-a-brac extended family have been summoned to join her, not so much as to say goodbye, but as an opportunity to spend some precious memorable moments together as she succumbs to her terminal illness.

Scripted by Sachs’ partner and usual scribe Mauricio Zacharias, their latest endeavor is a multicultural hodgepodge of noted cast members assembling for what’s meant to be a subtle, slightly nostalgic homage to a dying matriarch who wields significant power and presence over her intimates.…...

After a strong opening for Pain and Glory, Sony Pictures Classics will throw another title into the Specialty box office mix this weekend with the Ira Sachs drama Frankie starring Isabelle Huppert. The actress is certainly a draw when it comes to prestigious awards and there’s hope that her name will bring in audiences to see Frankie. The film joins the Specialty race after Parasite and Jojo Rabbit hit the ground running. Frankie looks as though it will be a good palate cleanser after two straight weekends of bold, genre-driven films.

The French-Israeli film Synonyms from Nadav Lapid will make its American debut in theaters this weekend, with its gripping tale about cultural identity. On the opposite end of Synonyms’ drama, we have the vibrant comedy Housefull 4, which is looking to make a global splash (Bollywood films usually do) while the re-release of 2000’s...

Isabelle Huppert works her unique magic on Frankie, a film whose insistence on staying in a minor key robs it of the chance to achieve major dimension. Huppert and a stellar cast do their best for Memphis-born director Ira Sachs (Keep the Lights On, Little Men, Forty Shades of Blue) by offering tone-perfect performances to compliment his efforts to create an American version of a European art film.

The screenplay Sachs has conjured up with Mauricio Zacharias is set over one day and night in Sintra, a breathtaking mountain village...

Frankie Sony Pictures Classics Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Ira Sachs Screenwriter: Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie RenierPascal Greggory, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, Carloto Cotta Sennia Nenua Screened at: Sony, NYC, 10/4/19 Opens: October 25, 2019 If you […]

The post Frankie Review: Falls short of embracing the Classical Unities by its involving subplots appeared first on Shockya.com.

Isabelle Huppert in a beautiful Burberry vest and jacket on Joan Crawford and movie star shoes in Mildred Pierce: "My favourite ever!" Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Ira Sachs' Frankie, co-written with longtime collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, starring Isabelle Huppert in the title role, with Brendan Gleeson, Jérémie Renier, Marisa Tomei, Pascal Greggory (Olivier Assayas' Non-Fiction), Greg Kinnear, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, Carloto Cotta, and Sennia Nanua, shot by Rui Poças in Sintra, Portugal, had its world première at the Cannes Film Festival.

Frankie (Isabelle Huppert) with her son Paul (Jérémie Renier)

At the Four Seasons on a stormy afternoon in New York, Isabelle connected Werner Schroeter's Two, Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, Chantal Akerman, costume designer Khadija Zeggaï, and the magic of Sintra for the first half of our conversation on Frankie.

One day in the beautiful town of Sintra...

There’s good casting, and then there is good casting. Indie auteur Ira Sachs has long excelled at populating his tender, family-driven films with big names, but for his latest, he’s reached a new level: casting beloved actress Isabelle Huppert as, well, a beloved actress. In “Frankie,” Huppert stars as the eponymous Frankie, a famous French performer with a big secret. When she requests that her family join her on a trip to a sunny Portuguese hamlet, what follows is warm, often confusing exploration into family dynamics, with Huppert at the center.

“Frankie” also stars Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Jeremie Renier, and Greg Kinnear. The film premiered at Cannes in May and will next screen at Tiff next month.

At Cannes, IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote that the film features Huppert’s most vulnerable performance to date. He continued, “Set across a 12-hour stretch of a misbegotten family vacation...

“Frankie,” by the American writer-director Ira Sachs, is a tiny little trinket of a film. It’s like an elegant bracelet that’s modest enough to go unnoticed, but nevertheless reveals a quietly exquisite beauty to those who are willing to lean in and look closer (even if they have to squint). In other words, it’s an Ira Sachs movie, only more so. But in this one, that bracelet is being worn by Isabelle Huppert, and it fits on her wrist like a second skin.

Sachs has always been a storyteller who doesn’t create his characters so much as he observes them from a safe but intimate distance — watching them the way you might catch yourself staring at a stranger on a crowded subway train — and his recent movies have earned him a reputation for making gentle human dramas that seem more like snapshots than full-sized portraits; even...

Competition title is Sachs’ Cannes debut.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer for Ira Sachs’ Cannes Competition title Frankie.

The film stars Isabelle Huppert as a famous French actress, who after learning she has only months to live, gathers her family for one last holiday in Sintra, Portugal.

Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Jérémie Renier, Pascal Greggory, Ariyon Bakare, Vinette Robinson and Greg Kinnear co-star.

Sachs wrote the screenplay with Mauricio Zacharias. Frankie is the director’s Cannes debut and the first time he has shot outside the Us.

Sachs’ previous films include The Delta, Sundance Grand Jury prize winner...

Sony Pictures Classics announced Tuesday that it has acquired the rights to the film “Frankie” in North America and numerous international territories. The film will premiere in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Ira Sachs directed the project, and co-wrote “Frankie” with Mauricio Zacharias. Isabelle Huppert, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear and Brendan Gleeson star.

“Frankie” follows a three-generational family get together in the idyllic town of Sintra, Portugal — before the family matriarch faces the next, and last, chapter of her life.

The film is produced by Saïd Ben Saïd of Sbs Productions and Michel Merkt, co-produced by Luís Urbano, Diana Elbaum and Anne Berger and executive produced by Kateryna Merkt, Kevin Chneiweiss and Lucas Joaquin.

“The experience and sensibilities of the team at Spc makes it a wonderful match for ‘Frankie.’ I am so pleased their passion for this film means it has now the ability to be...

Two weeks before the event’s official kickoff, the first big deal of this year’s Cannes Film Festival is already on the books. Deadline reports that Sony Pictures Classics has acquired Ira Sachs’ “Frankie” in advance of the film’s world premiere. The film marks the lauded indie filmmaker’s first appearance on the Croisette, and the family drama will premiere in Competition at the May festival.

Per the film’s official synopsis, it follows “three generations of a European family [who] come together in the fabled town of Sintra, Portugal, for one last vacation before the family matriarch faces the next, and last, chapter of her life. Over the course of one crisp October day, the fairy tale setting brings about everyone’s most romantic impulses, revealing both cracks between them, as well as unexpected depth of feeling.” The film stars Isabelle Huppert in a role already earning awards buzz,...

Exclusive: The Cannes Film Festival is a couple weeks out, but Sony Pictures Classics has gotten on the board with a splashy deal. Spc is acquiring Frankie before the Ira Sachs-directed film makes its world premiere in competition on the Croisette. The deal is for North America, Eastern Europe (including Cis), Scandinavia, the Middle East, South Africa, Spain, India and worldwide airlines.

Frankie stars Isabelle Huppert, Greg Kinnear, Marisa Tomei, Brendan Gleeson, Jérémie Renier, Andre Wilms, Vinette Robinson, Ariyon Bakare, and Pascal Greggory.

Three generations of a European family come together in the fabled town of Sintra, Portugal, for one last vacation before the family matriarch faces the next, and last, chapter of her life. Over the course of one crisp October day, the fairy-tale setting brings about everyone’s most romantic impulses, revealing both cracks between them, as well as unexpected depth of feeling.

Sachs wrote the film with Mauricio Zacharias.

Frankie

Ira Sachs‘ first production outside North America managed to lasso the likes of Isabelle Huppert, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier and Brendan Gleeson for an October shoot in Portugal. Frankie, his seventh feature film, replaces generic titles of Switzerland and A Family Vacation, and could tonally resemble some of his previous dramas starting way back in 1996’s The Delta, 2005’s Forty Shades of Blue, 2012’s Keep the Lights On or 2014’s Love Is Strange. Saïd Ben Saïd and Michel Merkt produce.

Gist: Written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, this is about three generations grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in Sintra, Portugal, a historic town known for its dense gardens and fairy-tale villas and palaces.…...

Far and away one of our most-anticipated films of next year is the latest drama from Ira Sachs, whose wonderfully gentle, humane Little Men and Love is Strange were among the best films of their respective years. For his next film, he’s teaming with a titan of international cinema, Isabelle Huppert. Once titled A Family Vacation but now going by Frankie, the first poster has now been unveiled.

Also starring Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, Ariyon Bakare, and André Wilms, it marks the director’s first time working outside the United States as production just wrapped in Portugal. Backed by Saïd Ben Saïd, it follows “three generations of a family grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in the historic town of Sintra, Portugal.”

“I am working with some of my favorite actors in the world to tell this delicate story of a family in crisis,...

French producer Saïd Ben Saïd unveiled a new title, poster and release date via Twitter for Ira Sachs’ next movie starring Isabelle Huppert. Previously titled A Family Vacation, Sach’s upcoming pic now goes by the name of Frankie. The pic is set to open in France September 25.

The family drama, written by Sachs and his longtime co-writer Mauricio Zacharias, is about three generations grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in Sintra, Portugal, a historic town known for its dense gardens and fairy-tale villas and palaces.

Saïd released the Paul Verhoeven-directed Elle which also starred Huppert, earning her a Golden Globe win and an Oscar nomination. He is also producing Verhoeven’s upcoming Benedetta.

Frankie also stars Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier, André Wilms, Brendan Gleeson, and Ariyon Bakare. The film marks Sachs’ first time working outside the U.

Mr. Mercedes star Brendan Gleeson and Ariyon Bakare have come aboard Ira Sachs’s drama A Family Vacation, joining Isabelle Huppert, Greg Kinnear, and Marisa Tomei. Co-written by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, the plot follows three generations grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in Sintra, Portugal, a historic town known for its dense gardens and fairy-tale villas and palaces.

Production is underway in Portugal with Saïd Ben Saïd producing along with Michel Merkt via their Paris-based Sbs Productions. Lucas Joaquin is the executive producer.

Gleeson, repped by Principal Entertainment La, can be seen in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, out next month on Netflix. Bakare, who co-stars in two upcoming Amazon limited series, Carnival Row and Good Omens, is with Gersh, Curtis Brown, and GoodManagement.

After giving a pair of performances among the best in her iconic career with Elle and Things to Come, Isabelle Huppert recently reteamed with Michael Haneke, Hong Sang-soo, Serge Bozon, and more. She’s now once again returning to Berlinale with Benoît Jacquot’s Eva, and while there, two more of the prolific actress’ projects have been announced.

First up, she’ll be leading the drama from Ira Sachs, who recently gave us the wonderful Love is Strange and Little Men. Titled A Family Vacation, it also stars Marisa Tomei, Greg Kinnear, Jérémie Renier and Andre Wilms, and it marks the director’s first time working outside the United States as he’ll be shooting it this fall in Portugal. Backed by Saïd Ben Saïd, it follows “three generations of a family grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in the historic town of Sintra, Portugal.