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Who would have wondered that Liam Neeson would be the perfect son to Leslie Nielsen‘s hilariously chaotic cop, Frank Drebin, in an all-new The Naked Gun? The 2025 film follows Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr, who must solve a hilariously convoluted case to stop his police department from shutting down. The Naked Gun also stars Pamela Anderson, Paul Walter Hauser, Danny Huston, Cch Pounder, and Kevin Durand. So, if you loved the hilarious comedy, never-ending jokes, and entertaining characters in The Naked Gun, here are some similar movies you should check out next.

The Other Guys (Netflix & Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Sony Pictures

The Other Guys is a buddy cop action comedy film directed by Adam McKay, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Henchy. The 2010 film follows Terry and Allen, two overlooked cops who must work together...

Films from parts of the world plagued by war and other hardships dominate the Venice Film Festival’s independently run Giornate Degli Autori that will open with Ukrainian-born director Vladlena Sandu’s autobiographical film “Memory” that revisits her traumatic childhood memories in war-torn Chechnya.

The competition of the Giornate – which is also known as Venice Days – comprises 10 world premieres, none of which are english-language titles. They hail from countries including Iran, Lebanon Kenya, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mexico, Spain, Greece and Italy.

The selection features another filmmaker, Germany-based Russian filmmaker Nastia Korkia, re-elaborating the Chechnyan conflict in “A Short Summer,” the story of eight-year-old Katya, who goes on vacation with her grandparents just as the war in Chechnya breaks out.

“In many of the selected titles the goal is life, building lives, relationships. One tries to process grief in order to overcome it and try hard to see the world...

Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori has unveiled the line-up for its 22nd edition.

The main competition, showcasing 10 features, will open with Ukrainian artist and filmmaker Vladlena Sandu’s Memory, a deeply personal work piecing together childhood memories of life in Chechnya’s capital of Grozny amid the violence of the First Chechen War.

The Chechen Wars also loom large in exiled Germany-based Russian director Nastia Korkia’s Short Summer about an eight -year-old girl vacationing with her grandparents as their marriage crumbles and the conflict in the North Caucasus spills into everyday Russian life.

Further contenders include Spanish director Gabriel Azorín Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes, following two men who return from the front and seek out an ancient thermal bath, the mysterious waters of which giving them the courage to say things they have never before told anyone.

Kenyan filmmaker Damien Hauser, who made waves...

Alberto Barbera presided over a lengthy press conference Tuesday morning, when he announced the stacked lineup for this year’s Venice Film Festival, which runs August 27-September 6.

The lineup is expansive, with big names and arthouse darlings sprinkled across the festival’s strands, even including the shorts program.

High-profile titles include Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny. Roberts leads the cast as a college professor who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light. The film will screen Out of Competition on Guadagnino and Amazon MGM Studios’ request, Barbera explained during the presser.

Elsewhere, in Competition we have Jay Kelly, the latest film Noah Baumbach has made for Netflix. The...

Rome’s Il Cinema in Piazza summer screenings series has wrapped its annual six-week event with more than 120,000 spectators including Al Pacino who showed up to catch Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher,” introduced by the director and star Mark Ruffalo.

The unique program featuring 94 free screenings in three outdoor venues, plus the indoor Cinema Troisi arthouse venue, is run by Rome’s Piccolo America nonprofit association, a feisty group of young film buffs who have been fighting to stave off the impending threat that a substantial portion of Rome’s movie theaters could be converted into shopping centers and supermarkets. Martin Scorsese is among their supporters.

Now at its 11th edition, Cinema in Piazza this year stepped up the number of special events, bringing a slew of national and international talents to its stages, including Gia Coppola who came to present “Palo Alto” and “The Last Showgirl”; “Eddington” director Ari Aster...

Launching later this month, the Italian Global Series Festival (Igsf) marks the long-awaited revival of the dormant RomaFictionFest, now with a spiffier, Riviera-side setting and a more ambitious remit. Running June 21–28 along the Adriatic beachfront between Rimini and Riccione, the revamped event signals more than a simple rebrand for a venerable TV showcase last seen in 2016.

“When Roma went dark, Italian drama lost its home,” says Igsf artistic director Marco Spagnoli. “We lost a place to spotlight our talent and connect creators from different backgrounds and storytelling traditions. In today’s fragmented, content-saturated world, a curated festival is more vital than ever—not just to champion great shows, but to foster real collaboration.”

Indeed, the original festival played a pivotal role in launching breakout Italian hits like “Gomorrah” and “The Mafia Kills Only in Summer,” while serving as a bridge between local talent and the international market. After winning best...

Paternal Leave director/screenwriter Alissa Jung with Anne-Katrin Titze on Luca Marinelli as Paolo: “Luca's performance gave me the opportunity to really dive in …”

Alissa Jung’s perceptive and compelling Paternal Leave (a highlight of Film at Lincoln Center and Cinecittà’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema) stars fantastic newcomer Juli Grabenhenrich and the wonderful Luca Marinelli (of Pietro Marcello’s Martin Eden and Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning The Great Beauty) with Arturo Gabbriellini (from Luca Guadagnino’s We Are Who We Are), Gaia Rinaldi, and Joy Falletti Cardillo. Other films not to be missed include the Opening Night selection, Francesca Comencini’s The Time It Takes (Il Tempo Che Ci Vuole) with Anna Mangiocavallo and Fabrizio Gifuni; Sara Fgaier’s Weightless (Sulla Terra Leggeri) with Andrea Renzi and Sara Serraiocco (Lamberto Sanfelice's Chlorine); Ferzan Özpetek’s Diamonds (Diamanti), a celebration of movie costume design, with Luisa Ranieri and...

As the lights go up on the last of the 22 films in Competition this year, Deadline’s critics reflect on the potential winners in what must be the strongest lineup in recent years…

Pete Hammond

I don’t think I’ve seen a Cannes Film Festival with so many enthusiastic reviews from the press. Only a handful of films seemed to get totally negative notices and none of them across the board. I walked out on a couple, including Resurrection, the Chinese film. Life is just too short. I also didn’t make it through Sebastian Lelio’s The Wave, or the Italian women’s prison flick Fuori despite liking Italians and its star Valeria Golino. I just wasn’t feeling it.

Otherwise, I have to say everything else I saw was above average but some of it overpraised in other quarters. Calm down! I mean, The Secret Agent was good,...

The Tribeca Festival has named jury members for the 15 competitive categories in its 2025 edition, running June 4-15 in New York City.

The winning films and filmmakers in each category will be announced at the festival’s awards ceremony on June 12.

The jury for the event’s US Narrative Feature competition comprises filmmaker Nia DaCosta, veteran producer Art Linson, filmmaker Joshua Marston, Bleecker Street head Kent Sanderson and author Colson Whitehead.

The International Narrative Feature competition jury consists of Polish-born actress Dagmara Dominczyk, Italian actress Valeria Golino, UK talent Toby Jones, Metrograph Pictures executive David Laub and actor Kyle MacLachlan.

Judging...

Tribeca Festival has unveiled an diverse jury lineup for its 2025 edition across 15 categories with writers, directors, actors, producers, Oscar winners and comedy trail blazers from Colson Whitehead, Nia DaCosta and Matthew Broderick to Jennifer Beals, Ilana Glazer, Art Linson, Kyle MacLachlan and Mira Sorvino.

Annie Murphy, Stephanie Hsu, Marianne-Jean Baptiste, Sheila Nevins, Alek Karpovsky will also be responsible for selecting this year’s top projects across film — narrative and documentary feature-length and shorts — as well as games and audio storytelling sections at the fest, which will unspool June 4-15 in New York City. See lineup here.

The Narrative Feature Competition jury includes Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winner Whitehead, whose 2019 novel Nickel Boys was was brought to screen last year by director RaMell Ross to critical acclaim; DaCosta, currently in post-production on 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple; producer Art Linson; indie filmmaker Joshua Marston; and Kent Sanderson, president of independent distributor Bleecker Street.

The Nora Ephron Award will honor an exceptional female filmmaker “who represents the spirit and vision” of the iconic filmmaker and writer.

“We’re proud to welcome an eclectic group of jurors to this year’s Tribeca Festival,” said Nancy Lefkowitz, EVP at Tribeca Enterprises. “Their breadth of expertise across genres will be instrumental in recognizing standout storytellers and honoring bold new voices from around the world.”

The winning films, projects, filmmakers, storytellers, and actors in each category will be announced at the Tribeca Festival ceremony on June 12.

Feature Film Competition

U.S. Narrative Feature Competition Jurors

Nia DaCosta

Art Linson

Joshua Marston

Kent Sanderson

Colson Whitehead

International Narrative Feature Competition

Dagmara Dominczyk

Valeria Golino

Toby Jones

David Laub

Kyle MacLachlan

Documentary Feature Competition

Sara Bernstein

Ben Proudfoot

Mira Sorvino

Best New Narrative Director Competition

Matthew Broderick

Sejin Croninger

Eliza Hittman

Best New Documentary Director Competition

Kristine Stolakis

Sean Stuart

Jamila Wignot

Nora Ephron Award

Caroline Aaron

Aijah Keith

Annie Murphy

Viewpoints Competition

Brian Jordon Alvarez

Jennifer Beals

Raul Castillo

Alex Karpovsky

Mickey Sumner

Short Film Competition Categories

Ilana Glazer

Asher Grodman

Sheila Nevins

Pamela Ribon

Moon Zappa

Short Documentary and Student Visionary Competition

Ahmed Ahmed

Weyes Blood

Kim Magnusson

Kareem Rahma

AT&T Untold Stories Greenlight Committee

Andrew Ahn

David Fortune

Stephanie Hsu

Marianne Jean-Baptiste

Gina Rodriquez

Kellyn Smith Kenny

More...

Matthew Broderick, Mira Sorvino, Nia DaCosta and Colson Whitehead are among the 2025 Tribeca Festival jurors, who will determine top content across film, games and audio storytelling sections.

More notable names among this year’s jury include Jennifer Beals, Ilana Glazer, Sheila Nevins, Eliza Hittman, Annie Murphy, Kyle MacLachlan, Alex Karpovsky and Mickey Sumner.

“We’re proud to welcome an eclectic group of jurors to this year’s Tribeca Festival,” Tribeca Enterprises executive vp Nancy Lefkowitz said in a statement. “Their breadth of expertise across genres will be instrumental in recognizing standout storytellers and honoring bold new voices from around the world.”

The juries for Tribeca’s 15 competition categories are as follows.

U.S. Narrative Feature Competition: Nia DaCosta, Art Linson, Joshua Marston, Kent Sanderson and Colson Whitehead

International Narrative Feature Competition: Dagmara Dominczyk, Valeria Golino, Toby Jones, David Laub and Kyle MacLachlan

Documentary Feature Competition: Sara Bernstein, Ben Proudfoot and...

The 2025 Tribeca Festival is bringing the best of the best together to select this year’s festival awards. IndieWire can announce that Nia DaCosta, Andrew Ahn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Kyle MacLachlan, Eliza Hittman, and more acclaimed filmmakers will be among the jury members for festival, which will take place June 4 through 15.

The Tribeca Festival, presented by Okx, will honor works across 15 competition categories. In addition, the Nora Ephron Award will honor an exceptional female filmmaker who represents the spirit and vision of the legendary filmmaker and writer. The winners in each category will be announced at the Tribeca Festival ceremony on June 12.

“We’re proud to welcome an eclectic group of jurors to this year’s Tribeca Festival,” Nancy Lefkowitz, EVP at Tribeca Enterprises, said. “Their breadth of expertise across genres will be instrumental in recognizing standout storytellers and honoring bold new voices from around the world.”

“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple...

It’s not generally a good sign when explanatory title cards at the start and end of a movie give you vital information missing from the movie itself. But that’s what happens with Fuori, a serviceable account of Italian writer Goliarda Sapienza’s years as both a prisoner and ex-con, during which she forged relationships with inmates that inspired some of her best literature. Directed efficiently if too tamely by Mario Martone (Nostalgia), and starring Cannes regular Valeria Golino (Rain Man), the film should find an audience in places where Sapienza’s books are popular, mainly Italy and France.

The author became famous in her homeland after her novel, The Art of Joy, was published in 1998. It was a critical and commercial success that turned Sapienza, who had died two years earlier, into a major voice in Italian literature. She had led a fascinating life before that, growing up in Sicily with socialist-anarchist parents,...

A collection of this year’s David-nominated short films is now showing on Mubi.Italian cinema never changes. Italian cinema speaks to no one. Italian cinema is dead. But are we sure about that?For the new season of the Mubi Podcast Italian Voices of Today, created in collaboration with the David di Donatello Awards, we want to explore five key moments that marked a clear “before” and “after” in our cinema, moments that prove change is happening.We do this through conversations with the 2025 David nominees for Best Short Film, alongside five figures who have already made their mark on Italian cinema.For the final episode of this season, Mattia Carzaniga speaks with Valeria Golino, winner of three David di Donatello awards as an actress and director of two remarkable films, Miele (2013) and Euforia (2018). This past year, she directed a great series based on a great novel: The Art of Joy...

Hoosegow Girls: Martone Pays Delicate Tribute to Goliarda Sapienza

“Never refuse to see the unpleasant aspects of life,” wrote Goliarda Sapienza in her widely regarded masterpiece The Art of Joy, which was published posthumously, decades after her death. A television mini-series adaptation was released in 2024, a majority of the episodes directed by Valeria Golino, who appropriately and fortuitously stars as Sapienza in Mario Martone’s Fuori (which translates to Out in English). Strangely, it’s a film which exists in a transitional ether, and indeed finds its subject in a lulled period of displacement—but it’s not without some sweet spots. We meet Goliarda in Rome, 1980, having recently been released from prison after sentenced for selling stolen jewelry.…...

For Italian actor and director Valeria Golino, it was a dream come true to play feminist writer Goliarda Sapienza in Mario Martone’s Cannes competition title “Fuori.”

Golino was in Cannes last year as the director of the “The Art of Joy” TV series, based on Sapienza’s posthumous book of the same name. This year, in “Fuori” – the title translates as “Outside” in Italian – she plays Sapienza during the 1980s when, after “The Art of Joy” is rejected by the Italian publishing world, she ends up in a Rome prison for stealing jewelry. Behind bars, she forges a deep bond with a repeat offender and political activist named Roberta, played by Matilda De Angelis.

Below, Golino speaks with Variety about her passion for Sapienza – whom she met when she was 18 and acted in a film directed by Sapienza’s former husband Citto Maselli – and her chemistry with De Angelis,...

Mario Martone’s Fuori plunges viewers into the paradox of liberation found within Rome’s Rebibbia prison, where writer Goliarda Sapienza (Valeria Golino) spends five transformative days in 1980. Against a backdrop of sun-drenched cobblestones and towering concrete walls, the film sketches a portrait of creative rebirth born from enforced solitude.

Martone—whose work often channels Italian neorealist roots—teams with Golino, who brings an insider’s intimacy to Sapienza after adapting her magnum opus The Art of Joy. Together they evoke a world that feels both local and universal: Sapienza’s search for voice amid bars and barred thoughts parallels the hunger for authenticity seen in India’s parallel cinema of the 1970s and ’80s.

As political unrest simmers offscreen, Fuori focuses on small acts—a shared cigarette, a fleeting embrace—that ripple outward into artistic awakening. The film announces its themes of freedom, solidarity and self-discovery with graceful restraint,...

Mario Martone’s Cannes Film Festival Competition title Fuori had its world premiere Tuesday night at the Lumière Theater, earning a 7 1/2–minute ovation.

From a script by Ippolita Di Majo and Martone, and starring Valeria Golino as writer Goliarda Sapienza, Fuori is inspired by Sapienza’s 1983 autobiography L’Università di Rebibbia (The University of Rebibbia) and follows her journey as the Italian publishing world rejects L’arte della gioia (The Art of Joy), the book she dedicated a decade to writing.

Reeling from this blow, Sapienza is promptly arrested and imprisoned for jewelry theft, but there is a silver lining: she forms solid bonds with her fellow inmates and continues to meet with them over the course of a long, hot summer. In particular, Sapienza becomes close with a political activist and repeat offender named Roberta (Matilda De Angelis).

Ultimately, the relationship between the two women serves to inspire Sapienza to...

Literary biopics are hard to pull off, and even harder to market (1995’s Total Eclipse missed a trick with “Leonardo DiCaprio Is Arthur Rimbaud!”). Even well-known U.S. writers tend to be the domain of the indie world, resulting in films as respectable but hardly lucrative as Capote (2005), Kill Your Darlings (2013) and Shirley (2020). The odds are, then, that a movie dedicated to a brief period in the life of Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996) — a noted Italian feminist and political activist denied her due until two years after her death — isn’t likely to cause a splash in international markets. However, Mario Martone’s thoughtful film does work quite well as a character study, in the same way that Marielle Heller’s Can You Ever Forgive Me? captured the struggles of a failing writer with big ideas.

Sapienza is played by Valeria Golino, who recently directed a six-part adaptation of the author...

If you weren’t aware of who she is, the writer Goliarda Sapienza had a fascinating life. An Italian actress and author who gained widespread acclaim for her novel, “L’arte della gioia,” only after she had passed away, Sapienza is the type of historical intellectual whose life of hardship would make a great film. Unfortunately, despite clearly having a great deal of affection for its subject, Mario Martone’s “Fuori” is not that film.

“Fuori,” which translates to “Outside,” leaves us frustratingly closed off from its central figure. The film, which charts her time in and out of prison in the early 1980s, jumping between before-and-after timelines, tries to build out Sapienza’s emotional connections to the people she met there. Unfortunately, everyone gets underserved by a shallow script.

Premiering Tuesday in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the film first picks up with an out-of-work Sapienza (Valeria Golino) in...

If the words “Valeria Golino prison fight” seem an unlikely combination, never fear: the veteran Italian director Mario Martone gleefully stage one of these in his Cannes Palme d’Or contender “Fuori.” Best known to younger audiences for her role as the Adèle Haenel character’s mother in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” multi-hyphenate Golino seems to have dedicated much of her recent career to exploring the legacy of the vaunted Italian writer Goliarda Sapienza: directing a 2024 prestige miniseries based on her avowed masterpiece “The Art of Joy” and now playing her in Martone’s “Fuori” at an auspicious moment in her life and career.

Born in 1924, with a life forged in Italian anti-fascism, religious nonconformity, and artistic radicalism, Sapienza’s turbulent existence had the feel of a one-person prison fight itself, even if her name is not immediately recognizable to international audiences.

The film’s auteur — making...

This year’s Italian presence at Cannes – one entry in competition by veteran auteur Mario Martone and two by young directors that landed slots in Un Certain Regard – accurately reflects the current state of Cinema Italiano.

Broadly speaking, following a protracted growth spurt, there has been a slowdown in production activity caused by the fact that the government has been dithering with modifications on tax incentives for local film and TV productions, which has stalled the greenlight process, especially for bigger-budget Italian movies.

But even though getting films financed has gotten tougher, a new generation of directors is bubbling under, alongside well-known names such as Paolo Sorrentino, Luca Guadagnino, Alice Rohrwacher and Nanni Moretti.

“I have the impression that once again we are seeing young [Italian] directors emerging and this is formidable,” Thierry Fremaux noted while announcing the lineup. The Cannes boss went on to add that “Italy is historically a...

Exclusive: Rome-based sales company True Colours has boarded psychological drama A Brief Affair (Breve Storia d’Amore), the directorial debut of leading Italian screenwriter Ludovica Rampoldi.

Rampoldi is known for her work on films such as Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor and Gabriele Salvatores’s The Invisible Boy, as well as TV series including Bellochio’s Exterior Night, Amazon’s The Bad Guy, and Sky’s Gomorrah – The Series and the 1992/1993/1994 trilogy.

The story follows Lea, who meets Rocco in a bar and becomes his lover. Their clandestine affair, confined to a hotel room, takes a sinister turn when Lea...

Exclusive: Rome-based sales company True Colours has boarded psychological drama A Brief Affair (Breve Storia d’Amore), the directorial debut of leading Italian screenwriter Ludovica Rampoldi.

Rampoldi is known for her work on films such as Marco Bellochio’s The Traitor and Gabriele Salvatores’s The Invisible Boy, as well as TV series including Bellochio’s Exterior Night, Amazon’s The Bad Guy, and Sky’s Gomorrah – The Series and the 1992/1993/1994 trilogy.

The story follows Lea, who meets Rocco in a bar and becomes his lover. Their clandestine affair, confined to a hotel room, takes a sinister turn when Lea...

Italian auteur Mario Martone, who last competed for the Cannes Palm d’Or in 2022 with “Nostalgia,” will soon be back on the Croisette with “Fuori” a drama set in 1980 Rome that depicts a specific period in the life of feminist writer Goliarda Sapienza who is best known for posthumously published erotic novel “The Art of Joy.”

Variety has been given an exclusive clip of the drama which is produced by Indigo Film with Rai Cinema and Fremantle’s The Apartment, and co-produced with Srab Films, and La Pact Production in collaboration with Fremantle. Goodfellas is handling international sales. The film will go on release in Italy on May 22.

“Fuori,” which translates as “Outside,” portrays Sapienza, played by Valeria Golino, during the 1980s when, after “The Art of Joy” is rejected by the Italian publishing world, she ends up in a Rome prison for stealing jewelry and forges a deep bond...

The 70th David di Donatello Awards, held at Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, marked a pivotal moment for Italian cinema as women filmmakers emerged at the forefront of the country’s most prestigious film honors. Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio dominated the evening, winning seven awards, while major honors were also claimed by Valeria Golino and Margherita Vicario, signaling a broad shift in creative leadership and recognition.

Delpero’s wartime drama, set in 1944 in an isolated Alpine village, earned the top prizes: Best Film and Best Director. She became the first woman to receive the directing award in the seven-decade history of the event. Only two women had previously taken the Best Film category. Vermiglio also collected awards for Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Sound, Casting, and Production. These achievements reflect both the artistic ambition of the film and its technical command across multiple disciplines.

The narrative of Vermiglio follows the disruption caused by...

Maura Delpero’s Italian WW2 drama Vermiglio won best film at the 70th David Di Donatello awards, Italy’s version of the Oscars, held at Rome’s historic Cinecittà film studio on Wednesday night. Delpero also took best directing honors en route to a 7-trophy sweep.

The film, which had its world premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival last year, beat out the two award frontrunners, Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, a sumptuous, occasionally surreal tribute to his hometown of Naples, and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition, a political biopic about Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer, which lead the pack going into the David awards with 15 nominations each. Parthenope went away empty-handed, but The Great Ambition took two awards: Best actor for Elio Germano, who play Berlinguer, and best editing for Jacopo Quadri.

Tecla Insolia won best actress for her starring role in Nicolangelo Gelormini’s Sicilian...

Women dominated Italy’s David di Donatello Awards with Maura Delpero’s Venice Silver Lion winner “Vermiglio” taking top honors and Valeria Golino’s female empowerment drama “The Art of Joy” and Margherita Vicario’s directorial debut “Gloria!” also scoring multiple statuettes.

“Vermiglio,” which is set at the end of World War II in an Alpine village where the arrival of a soldier causes disruption in the dynamics between three sisters, was the night’s big winner taking best picture, best director, screenplay, producer, cinematography, sound and the David’s newly introduced casting category.

Delpero, who is the first woman to win the best director David in the 70-year history of the awards – and only the third female filmmaker to win best film – underlined the anti-war aspect of “Vermiglio”

“When I thought about writing it, someone asked me if it wasn’t anachronistic to talk about war,” she said.

“Unfortunately,...

Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio took home Best Film and Director at the 70th edition of Italy’s David di Donatello Awards on Wednesday evening, in an historic win for a female director.

Delpero is the first woman to win the David di Donatello Best Director prize in the history of the awards, and only the third female filmmaker to win Best Film.

The film picked up seven David di Donatellos in total which also included Best Original Screenplay, Casting, Producer, Cinematography and Sound.

Set in a remote mountain village in 1944, Vermiglio revolves around a family whose life is disrupted by the arrival of a deserted soldier. The feature world premiered in Venice where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and went on to be Italy’s 2025 Oscars submission.

It was an historically strong night for female directors.

Other big winners included Italian actress and singer-songwriter Margherita Vicario who won Best First Film,...

Timothée Chalamet underlined the impact of Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name” on his career as he received Italy’s David Award for Cinematic Excellence during the event’s 70th edition on Wednesday evening at Rome’s Cinecittá studios.

“Luca is probably the most important person in my career,” said Chalamet, who attended Italy’s top film award show with girlfriend Kylie Jenner — marking the first time they’ve walked a red carpet together despite being linked for two years — and his father Marc Chalamet. When Chalamet earned his first best actor nomination in 2017 for Guadagnino’s “Call Me” at 22, he was the third-youngest nominee ever in that category.

“I started out as a 20-year-old kid from New York who was having a hard time breaking out in the American film industry,” Chalamet said. “My career happened overnight thanks to Luca Guadagnino and the chance he took on...

Timothée Chalamet will receive the David for Cinematic Excellence during the 70th edition of the David di Donatello Awards, Italy’s leading film prizes.

The honor will be conferred on May 7 during the awards ceremony, aired live in primetime on national broadcaster Rai 1 from the Cinecittà Studios in Rome. The event will be hosted by actor Elena Sofia Ricci and singer Mika. It will also be live on Rai Radio2, hosted by Carolina Di Domenico and Claudio Santamaria.

“Timothée Chalamet’s European origins and American background make him one of the most unpredictable and talented protagonists of international cinema today, capable of being both an auteur performer and a star generating trends and styles,” said Piera Detassis, president and artistic director of the Academy of Italian Cinema.

“The academy is delighted to award him the David for Cinematic Excellence, which is meant to be an acknowledgement of the great...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 78th edition (May 13-24).

Scroll down for full line-up

Festival director Thierry Frémaux revealed the Official Selection at a press conference at the Ugc Montparnasse cinema in Paris alongside festival president Iris Knobloch.

A diverse range of features make up the 2025 Competition, mixing veteran auteurs with up-and-coming directors.

Acclaimed directors the Dardenne Brothers, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and Joachim Trier are among those selected for Cannes Competition 2025.

Newcomers to the Competition include genre specialist Ari Aster, Berlin Golden Bear winner Carla Simon as well as Germany’s Mascha Schilinski.

Six...

Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope, the director’s sumptuous, occasionally surreal tribute to his hometown of Naples, and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition, a political biopic about Italian Communist Party leader Enrico Berlinguer, are the frontrunners for this year’s David Di Donatello awards, Italy’s version of the Oscars.

Parthenope and The Great Ambition picked up 15 nominations each, including for best film and best director. In the best film category, they will face up against Maura Delpero’s Italian WW2 drama Vermiglio and Valeria Golino and Nicolangelo Gelormini’s L’arte della gioia (The Art of Joy), which received 14 nominations each, and the Francesca Comencini-directed drama The Time It Takes, which received four nominations. Other multiple nominees include Margherita Vicario’s debut feature Gloria!, about women musicians at a Church-run establishment in early-1800s Italy, which scored nine nominations, and Francesco Costabile’s crime thriller Familia, with eight.

In the best international film category,...

Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope and Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition have taken the lead at the nomination stage for Italy’s upcoming 70th David di Donatello awards.

The titles have secured 15 nominations each including for best film and director.

Maura Delpero’s Vermiglio and Valeria Golino and Nicolangelo Gelormini’s The Art Of Joy received 14 nominations each, followed by Gloria! and Familia with nine and eight nominations respectively.

Sorrentino’s Parthenope, following a woman from her birth in 1950 to the current day against the backdrop of Naples, world premiered in Cannes.

Biopic The Great Ambition stars Elio Germano as 1970s and 1980s left-wing political leader Enrico Berlinguer, who nearly led the Communist party into power.

Vermiglio world premiered in Venice where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and went on to be Italy’s 2025 Oscars submission. Set in a remote mountain village in 1944, the drama revolves around...

Walter Salles has described the “explosion of joy” in Brazil at his Oscar win for I’m Still Here as “the most beautiful gift”.

Speaking after his masterclass at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra lab, Salles said the film “allowed younger generations to have a better understanding of what had happened in their own country. It was the contact with a hidden part of history that surfaced, and that is what made the film theirs.”

“There’s always a moment where the film ceases to be made by the family that allowed it to exist, and becomes something that belongs...

Walter Salles has revealed he is eager to work again with The Motorcycle Diaries star Gael García Bernal, and that an opportunity nearly arose ahead of his making Oscar-winning drama I’m Still Here.

“We’ve been trying for a long time,” Salles told journalists at the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra event this weekend, saying they had worked on a project involving characters from different Latin American countries that had not come to fruition.

“I developed it for Gael. I would love to work again with Gael. He’s one of my closest friends and one of the persons I love most in life and in cinema as well, he was an incredible co-author of The Diaries,” Salles said of the Mexican star, whose recent credits include La Máquena and Holland.

“I love the idea of cinema being done by a family, and Gael is certainly part of that family…...

Those looking for homegrown talent and stories at the largest documentary film festival in Switzerland, Visions du Réel, will be spoiled for choice in 2025. This year’s edition, which runs April 4-13, features a whopping 31 Swiss productions or co-productions, including the festival’s opening film, Christian Frei’s “Blame.” Veteran Frei, the first-ever Swiss filmmaker to be nominated for an Oscar back in 2002 for “War Photography,” stands alongside a crop of new talent in feature debuts such as Agostina Di Luciano and Leon Schwitter’s “The World Upside Down.”

On the healthy crop of Swiss productions and co-productions this year, Charlotte Ducos, documentary and marketing strategies consultant at the country’s national agency Swiss Films, says it is “incredibly important to have Swiss films across the program and to have the opening film of the festival not only be Swiss but also a very expected title by a renowned filmmaker.

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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...

Anyone who’s seen John Carpenter’s 1996 sequel “Escape From L.A.” knows that, in the past, the filmmaker’s feelings about the City of Angels have been mixed, to put it mildly. They’re epitomized by a scene in which Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is enjoying a brief moment of relative peace in the earthquake-ravaged ruins of the city, after almost having his body parted out by the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills (Bruce Campbell), when his running mate of the moment (Valeria Golino) looks at him and observes, “Once you figure out this place, it’s really not so bad.” She is immediately shot in the back..

While Carpenter has occasionally been metaphorically wounded by the slings, arrows and bullets of the city’s entertainment-industrial complex, he’s managed to survive. And in the lead-up to receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on April 3, he’s...

Exclusive: Goodfellas has unveiled one of its biggest European Film Market slates ever featuring upcoming films by Cristian Mungiu, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Saeed Roustaee, Claire Denis, Mario Martone and Raoul Peck.

The company is also handling a trio of Berlin Film Festival titles: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Golden Bear contender The Ice Tower with Marion Cotillard; Burhan Qurbani’s No Beast. So Fierce. in Berlinale Special; and a fresh acquisition, Bálint Dániel Sós’ Growing Down.

The latter film, which premieres in the new competitive Perspectives section aimed at first films, revolves around a widowed father of two who is tested by fate when he becomes the only witness of a serious accident involving his stepdaughter caused by his youngest son.

Goodfellas will begin pre-sales on Romanian director Mungiu’s first English-language picture Fjord, with Oscar nominee Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) and Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve (The Worst Person in the World...

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This February, Prime Video is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the return of beloved shows like Invincible and Reacher to the much-anticipated teen romantic drama film My Fault: London. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Prime Video this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 10 best films that are coming to Prime Video in February 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

A Fish Called Wanda (February 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96% Credit – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

A Fish Called Wanda is a heist comedy film directed by Charles Crichton from a screenplay by John Cleese. The 1988 film revolves around a group of thieves and con artists who team up to pull off the perfect heist, but things go horribly wrong because they all try to double-cross each other.

Last Updated on December 26, 2024

Plot: Famed opera singer Maria Callas retreats to Paris in the 1970s after a glamorous yet tumultuous life in the public eye.

Review: Pablo Larrain‘s loose trilogy about famous twentieth-century women, beginning with 2016’s Jackie and 2021’s Spencer, comes to a close with Maria. Based on the life of revered opera singer Maria Callas, Larrain’s biopic focuses on the least recognizable of the three women. That Callas’ notoriously short life is not as easily remembered compared to Jackie Kennedy or Princess Diana affords Maria the ability to examine the singer’s life from a vantage point that is less sterile and distant than the previous two films. With a direct connection to Jackie, Maria retains some of the languid pacing and uneven creative choices that prevented Larrain’s prior biopics from being as strong as they could have been. However, after solid performances from Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart,...

Pretty Woman’s lead role went to various actresses before Julia Roberts ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

After this, Julia Roberts snagged the role to launch her to global fame. It was a classic mix of talent, timing, and, let’s be honest, some seriously quirky Hollywood decisions.

Let’s start with Molly Ringwald. The teen queen of the 1980s turned down Vivian because she felt “something icky about it.” She candidly told The Guardian that even back then, she sensed a story vibe that just didn’t sit right. Ringwald’s hesitation paved the way for others to test their luck—and face similar hurdles.

So who else tried to snag the role of Vivian? Let’s just say Disney and Garry Marshall, the director behind Pretty Woman, had some ambitious picks. Karen Allen was first in the mix. Then came Winona Ryder, Jennifer Connelly, and even Diane Lane. But each time,...

Angelina Jolie’s Maria is one of this year’s best performances. The actress received a standing ovation at the 81st Venice International Film Festival for portraying opera singer Maria Callas. For her role, Jolie went through intense preparation, including learning how to sing. She even discovered things about her voice that she hadn’t noticed before.

Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in Maria (2024) | Credits: Netflix

Besides Jolie, the film also featured Valeria Golino as Callas’ sister Yakinthi and Haluk Bilginer as Aristotle Onassis, the Greek businessman who was rumored to be in a relationship with Callas. The film is the third and final feature of Pablo Larraín’s trilogy of iconic women, after Jackie and Spencer.

Angelina Jolie has amazed everyone with their singing in Maria Angelina Jolie in a still from Maria | Credits: Netflix

Angelina Jolie took months to master singing for her role in Pablo Larraín’s Maria.

Angelina Jolie stars in Netflix's Maria, the latest film by acclaimed director Pablo Larraín that re-envisions the life of the iconic Greek soprano, Maria Callas. Jolie, who is already receiving major awards buzz for her role as the staggering figure, shines bright in a picture that received a positive response from critics and audiences alike. After arriving on Netflix earlier this month, Maria now has a Certified Fresh score and an equally positive audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Maria has a 73% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a 73% Popcornmeter score from general audiences. While it seems not everyone is totally in love with the film, one aspect has been universally praised since the start – Jolie's performance as Maria Callas. Larraín's biopics are normally not touted for their adherence to the true story, and Maria reimagines much of what happens in the performer's life while filling in the blanks.

Netflix’s Maria is the latest subversive biopic from acclaimed filmmaker Pablo Larraín, exploring the tumultuous life of opera singer Maria Callas. The film centers around the celebrity’s final days before her death, exploring the impact of her work on both the world around her and her own psyche. It’s a dark, twisted tale of fame, ambition, and corruption that certainly doesn’t stick to the formula when it comes to historical biopics. The film is notably one of Angelina Jolie’s best projects yet, as she delivers a groundbreaking performance in the lead role.

Larrain has a very unique style of filmmaking that’s totally unlike anything else that came before it, but there are certainly traces of influence and inspiration that can be found in Maria. The film’s dark, socially relevant exploration of womanhood and success is something that’s often explored in these kinds of films,...

This review was originally published on August 29, 2024, as a part of our Venice Film Festival coverage.

Maria makes its intentions clear early. In September 1977, legendary opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) is in her final days, and her grasp on reality is tenuous at best. She rearranges the world with herself at the center, though where once entire crowds were subject to her whims, now there remain only her loyal butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) and maid (Alba Rohrwacher). They worry over her declining health. By abusing her medication, she hallucinates entire conversations. She detests doctors, who feel compelled to disrupt her with their facts.

Director Pablo LarrainWriters Steven KnightCast Aggelina Papadopoulou, Lydia Korniordou, Christiana Aloneftis, Toma Hrisztov, Kay Madsen, Luca Gréta Felhalmi, Jeremy Wheeler, Philipp Droste, Marcell Lengyel, Botond Bartus, Alessandro Bressanello, Stephen Ashfield, Zora Gerda Fejes, Rebecka Johnston, Vincent Macaigne, Pierfrancesco Favino, Haluk Bilginer, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Angelina Jolie, Valeria Golino,...

Angelina Jolie stars as Maria's eponymous character, Maria Callas, a renowned opera singer in the middle of the 20th century. The 2024 biographical psychological drama film, directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Steven Knight, follows the later years of Callas' life, which were mostly spent in Paris, France, away from the public eye. Callas experienced a lot of turmoil over the course of her 53 years of living. However, Maria director Larraín wanted to focus on the ending of the opera singer's story rather than chronicle every single detail of her life and career.

Maria is the final installment in Pablo Larraín's trilogy chronicling important women of the 20th century, following in the footsteps of Jackie (Jackie Kennedy) and Spencer (Princess Diana).

Maria is Jolie's first movie in three years as her role on the big screen was as Thena in the 2021 Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals. As one might suspect,...

Maria is a new biographical film about renowned opera singer Maria Callas directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Steven Knight. Starring Angelina Jolie in the titular role, the film focuses primarily on the final years of Callas' life and the complicated story behind her death. Maria has been a highly anticipated release due to praise around Jolie's performance, with many calling it one of the best of her career and a contender in a year of radically competitive acting performances (as far as awards season goes).

Furthermore, Maria is the third installment in a trilogy of films by Larraín that highlight historical female figures within a concentrated period of their lives, preceded by Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021). The stars of both of these films went on to receive Oscar nominations for their work. Thus, the hype around Maria is understandable, especially as it pertains to Jolie's performance. So, aside from the acting hype,...

Angelina Jolie is all set to dazzle us as one of the world’s greatest opera singers in her new film, but before Maria hits Netflix on Dec. 11, the Academy Award-winning actress recently took time out of her busy schedule to shut down what she referred to as an "insane question." Jolie stars as Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s new biopic, which is thus far getting rave reviews from all the right people, and generating a healthy amount of Oscar buzz ahead of award’s season.

Speaking with The Times about what went into making Maria, and how she felt embodying someone with such a rich and complicated history, the conversation then turned to Jolie herself. When asked what a biographical movie about the Tomb Raider star might look like, it was then that Jolie "scorned" the reporter for even broaching the subject.

"That gets the most insane question award.