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NBC has recently added one of the most beloved movies ever made, The Shawshank Redemption, to its Peacock streaming service. This classic 1994 prison drama has long been praised for its powerful story and memorable performances, and now Peacock subscribers can watch it anytime.

The Shawshank Redemption is based on a novella by Stephen King called Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. The movie tells the story of Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins, a banker who is sent to Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murder of his wife and her lover—crimes he insists he did not commit.

While in prison, Andy forms a close friendship with Ellis “Red” Redding, a contraband smuggler played by Morgan Freeman. Together, they navigate the harsh realities of prison life. The film also stars Bob Gunton as the corrupt prison warden, Samuel Norton, with strong supporting roles from William Sadler, Clancy Brown, Gil Bellows, and James Whitmore.

NBC has just added one of the most beloved movies of all time to its streaming service Peacock. The Shawshank Redemption, a 1994 prison drama, is now available for fans to watch anytime.

The film, written and directed by Frank Darabont, is based on Stephen King’s 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. It tells the story of Andy Dufresne, a banker who is wrongly sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for murdering his wife and her lover. Despite his innocence, Andy faces decades behind bars, where he befriends fellow inmate Ellis “Red” Redding, played by Morgan Freeman.

Together, they navigate the harsh realities of prison life, with Andy eventually becoming involved in a money laundering scheme run by the corrupt warden Samuel Norton.

Darabont bought the rights to Stephen King’s story back in 1987 but didn’t start working on the film until five years later. He wrote the script quickly,...

Steven Spielberg is the highest-grossing director with $10.7 billion in worldwide box office (not adjusted for inflation), with James Cameron right behind at $8.7 billion, basically one "Avatar" movie. The top-grossing actors include Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr., Zoe Saldana, and Chris Pratt each in the $14 billion range (unadjusted). Pretty darn impressive ... but film composers scoff at such meager numbers, probably while twirling their batons.

The highest-earning film composers don't just match these figures; they far exceed them. Movie composers get their due credit, as their work is frequently one of the most enjoyable and enduring parts of the films we love. But while we talk a lot about composers, it's not often that the conversation turns to what really matters in Hollywood -- the money they make for movie studios. We're going to change that right now. You have seen their movies. You definitely know their work. Now...

Beyoncé is facing some particularly familiar competition for an Emmy this year: her own husband.

As the 2025 Emmy nominations were announced on Tuesday, both Queen Bey and Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) were listed as nominees in the outstanding variety special (live) category; Beyoncé for her Beyoncé Bowl halftime show for the NFL’s Christmas Day game on Netflix, and Jay as one of the executive producers for Kendrick Lamar’s Apple Music Super Bowl Lix Halftime Show.

It’s hard to track how many times a husband and wife have ever competed against one another in the same Emmy category in the past, though it’s certainly not a common occurrence.

Both Beyoncé and Lamar’s halftime shows were critically lauded and groundbreaking. Beyoncé performed the first-ever Christmas Day NFL halftime show, while Lamar broke records for the most-viewed Super Bowl halftime show of all time with over 133 million viewers.

A father-daughter composing team was nominated, Hans Zimmer could win his first Emmy, and a music supervisor was nominated for three different shows — just some of the surprises among nominations for the 2024-2025 Emmys unveiled Tuesday morning by the Television Academy.

Thomas Newman and his daughter Julia Newman were nominated for their music for Netflix’s miniseries “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” a first in Emmy history for a two-generation, same-family collaboration on a single television score. And in another musical-family story, Oscar and Emmy winner Michael Giacchino’s son Mick Giacchino was nominated for his original music for HBO’s “The Penguin.”

Zimmer, who has two Oscars and four Grammys, has never won an Emmy but could this year with his nomination in the documentary music category for NBC’s “The Americas” (shared with fellow composers Anze Rozman and Kara Talve).

Music supervisor Gabe Hilfer dominated the...

Almost a decade after its rocky theatrical debut, Passengers — the 2016 sci-fi romance starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence — has found new life in the unlikeliest of places: the HBO Max global streaming charts. Despite its icy reception from critics, the film has quietly become a top 10 hit worldwide on the platform, with audiences rediscovering the slick, stylish space drama and giving it a second chance. It’s an ironic twist for a movie that was once branded “Titanic amongst the stars” by a reviewer attempting to summarize its doomed-romance-in-a-crisis formula. And while Passengers never quite hit those box office heights — or narrative depth — it’s clearly struck a chord years later.

Written by Jon Spaihts and directed by Morten Tyldum, Passengers is part slow-burn romance, part existential thriller, and part last-minute action spectacle — a combo that some audiences loved and others found deeply jarring. That genre ambiguity was a major criticism at the time,...

"Do you understand the fact that this really is about real people?"

That was the questioned posed by 15-time Oscar-nominee Thomas Newman to his daughter and fellow composer, Julia Newman, as she crafted the score for Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. It was a fair question, considering Julia wasn't old enough to remember the headlines about brothers Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez) and Erik Menendez (Cooper Koch), who in 1989 murdered their wealthy parents, José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty (Chloë Sevigny). As Julia told Gold Derby, it was important to "take a step back and understand that even though this is a dramatization, it's a dramatization based on real people."

Julia collaborated with her father in writing the score for Monsters, the second installment of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan's anthology series that peels back the layers of salacious true-crime stories. "We wanted to honor that it was real,...

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Fans of The Last of Us were left with plenty to chew on after the Season Two finale, which featured a surprise cliffhanger and possible time jump. For showrunner Neil Druckmann, it’s just another way to push the storyline of the TV series while still paying homage to the origins of the Last of Us video game franchise.

As he told Rolling Stone recently, “The best way...

A single human voice singing, wordlessly, can evoke a sense of humanity — or inhumanity — depending on the behavior we witness on our screens.

This was the case in two much talked-about streaming series, accomplished in very different ways but with a similar goal in mind: the music of “Adolescence,” by Aaron May and David Ridley, and of “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” by the father-daughter team of Thomas and Julia Newman. Both aired on Netflix.

For “Adolescence,” a four-hour story about a 13-year-old English boy charged with the murder of a female classmate, the documentary-style filming demanded that any score needed to be handled “so sensitively and so specifically,” says May. “You don’t want to be conscious of breaking the realism.”

One of their key choices was to include the voice of Emilia Holliday, the young actress who plays Katie Leonard, the victim. “Throughout the series, we never hear her speak,...

When it comes to revisiting the gateway horror media that haunted our youth, we often find ourselves baffled by the silly and often laughable things that used to scare us. However, sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes we look back on a piece of media that we enjoyed as children only to realize that it was much darker than our naïve brains could fully comprehend at the time.

A great example of this is Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, a series of Young Adult novels defined by their generally gothic tone and frequent use of gallows humor. While these books were a tremendous hit among the Scholastic crowd (and often served as a dreary substitute for kids who weren’t into Harry Potter), they also contained numerous gruesome deaths and genuinely disturbing plot points that still distress readers to this day. And with the 2000s seeing a...

We were hardly surprised that AMPAS’s notoriously insular and tony music branch took a hard pass on Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor’s meme-tastic, Golden Globe- and Critics’ Choice Award-winning score for Challengers. While the branch’s voters welcomed Ross-Reznor to the club long ago (they’ve won twice), one wouldn’t need to examine the history of what’s been shortlisted but snubbed too closely to know that piledriver beats that sound straight out of a poppers trainer video were probably never going to connect with the same demographic that just last year gave John Williams a record-extending 54th Oscar nomination.

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Of course, getting the nomination is only half the battle, and for all the music branch’s efforts to keep its peers’ most unorthodox work at bay, voters at large feel less resistant these days to taking bigger swings—hence Steven Price’s Gravity beating Alexandre Desplat’s Philomena,...

After Sister Wives fans saw that Christine Brown Woolley’s dad, Rex Allred, was in attendance at her wedding, some questions arose. One is, does Rex still live as part of the Apostolic United Brethren polygamist lifestyle?

Sister Wives Shows Christine Brown Woolley’s Parents Together

In the latest episode of Sister Wives, Christine Brown Woolley and David Woolley tied the knot. Among the attendees were both Christine’s mom, Ruth Anne Stevens, and her dad, Rex Allred. However, Christine and Annie were estranged for many years because of the embarrassment she felt after she left her dad. But they reconnected and were on good terms at the wedding. Some fans might remember that Kody Brown was attracted to Christine’s “royal” status within the Aub. Rex’s dad, Rulon Allred, was the prophet and one of the founders of the church.

Christine Brown talking to her dad, Rex Allred.

It began with the spark of a candle in 1941 related to the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons. Wait, a comic book genre?! No one was certain what to think about pages coming to life. The comic book genre has been under siege during "Awards Season" since 1978 when Christopher Reeve made the world believe a man could fly.

Recently, a different Bat signal had been emblazoned across Hollywood's sky, and it is solid gold. Can we stop hating on this genre now?

It probably won't happen as long as people like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Roland Emmerich, and David Cronenberg are helming Hollywood. They're so influential and vociferous against the comic book genre that it tends to make the award bureaus reconsider a person acting in spandex really isn't "acting." As if cosplay doesn't involve imagination.

And so, hate continues against any visual entertainment from comic books and graphic novels.

Adele is one of the most accomplished singers of her generation. In addition to being one of the world's best-selling musicians, she's won 16 Grammys, 18 Billboard Music Awards, 12 Brit Awards, five American Music Awards, and among her other accolades, her "Skyfall" theme got James Bond an Oscar.

James Bond movies have followed a winning formula that's kept 007 on movie screens for 60+ plus years, and that formula follows a few trademarks: Beautiful women, super-villain lairs with death traps, lots of guns, terrible puns, etc. Before the adventure truly kicks off, though, Bond films must have a lavish title sequence with a custom-composed song.

The first two Bond films, "Dr. No" and "From Russia With Love," actually used instrumental openings. Then for the third (and some say best) Bond film, "Goldfinger," the theme song had lyrics -- written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, and sung by Shirley Bassey. "Goldfinger" the song is...

The Palisades Fire has engulfed Palisades Charter High School, a school that has long been a popular location for Hollywood productions.

NBC Los Angeles reported on Tuesday night that the fire spread through several structures at the Pchs campus, and had all but destroyed the adjacent Theater Palisades.

Earlier in the day, Pchs posted a note on its website that the school was closed due to the Palisades Fire.

As the fires continued to rage, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency, and nearly 30,000 people have been ordered to evacuate.

Pchs is a popular location for Hollywood productions. The school has featured prominently in films, most notably Brian De Palma’s 1976 horror classic Carrie, where it was dubbed Bates High School in the movie. The school also featured heavily in Danny Steinmann’s 1984 teen vigilante movie Savage Streets, the 2003 remake of Freaky Friday, the Teen Wolf TV series,...

Another day, another sign of industry support for Emilia Pérez.

On Wednesday, the Society of Composers and Lyricists announced its 2025 Scl Awards nominations with Netflix’s Spanish-language cartel musical out in front with three nominations.

The ceremony will take place on Feb. 12.

Emilia Pérez composers and songwriters Clément Ducol and Camille earned three nominations as did Atticus Ross, who received two nominations for Challengers and one for the television series Shōgun.

Other highlights: Diane Warren was nominated for The Six Triple Eight, the sixth consecutive year she’s up for an Scl Award. Harry Gregson-Williams and director Ridley Scott will also be honored with the Spirit of Collaboration Award, “which recognizes a composer/director relationship that has created a prodigious body of work.”

The duo has worked together seven times, including this year on Gladiator II.

“Ridley is an open book when it comes to music, and working with him...

[spoilers]

Landman, a hit show that Taylor Sheridan has put out, has already landed itself in some controversy. While the show has been getting some great press for the story, there has been a very odd aspect of the show that has fans feeling miffed.

Billy Bob Thornton as Tommy Norris || Credit: Paramount+

The vibe of the scenes between Michelle Randolph’s Ainsley, who is the daughter of Billy Thornton’s Tommy Norris, and the latter, have been deemed to be a little more than creepy by the fandom. This has led to much internet outrage and ridicule about the nature of the plotline, even if only a few episodes have hit the airwaves so far.

A particular scene between Ainsley and Thornton has gotten fans very creeped out Ainsley Norris || Credit: Paramount+

While Taylor Sheridan has been largely appreciated for all the work that he has put into his television ventures,...

November is here, and with sunset falling sooner and sooner, what better way to spend your down time than snuggled up on the couch watching a great movie? A bevy of films are newly streaming in November and we’ve rounded up a curated list of the best ones added to Netflix, Prime Video, Max, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock and beyond this month.

Check out our picks for the best new movies streaming in November 2024 below.

“Music by John Williams” “Music by John Williams” (Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd.)

Disney+ – Nov. 1

John Williams is the elder statesman of film music. His scores conjure memories and transport you to different times and places. Just think about what he’s contributed over the years, from “Jaws” to “Star Wars” to “Indiana Jones” to “Harry Potter” to “Jurassic Park” to “Home Alone.” Even lesser-known scores crackle with intensity, technical proficiency and creative flair (think Brian De Palma...

John Williams “has made a gigantic contribution to the world of music at large, beginning with making film music legitimate but also his concert work.” For our recent webchat, director and producer Laurent Bouzereau makes that claim about the subject of his new documentary “Music by John Williams,” which now streaming on Disney+. In fact, Bouzereau ranks Williams as the #1 composer of the 20th century, ahead of Gershwin, McCartney/Lennon and Simon, adding, “My argument is that there are very few people” (especially who started in the 1960s and 1970s) who “have survived the test of time.”

He admits that he’s “been preparing for this my entire life” by watching the films of Steven Spielberg with the scores by maestro Williams. He adds that it’s “an honor to be the one who tells this story, because I’m not the first one to approach John. He said ‘no’ many times,...

November 1 saw the Disney+ release of Music by John Williams, a documentary that chronicles "maestro John Williams' own story" in just under two hours. As I have been playing music since the age of 3, John Williams has been a hero to me since before I saw Star Wars. This feature taught me things I had never known and reached me on an emotional level in the same way that his scores do.

Here are the 5 best moments of Music by John Williams.

1. The original "Binary Sunset"

"Every once in a while there'd be a cue, and I'd say, 'That's not what I had in mind here,'" says George Lucas during an extended section on the first Star Wars film. A few seconds later, we see Tatooine's twin suns and the words "unused cue" on the screen. The music is high and frenetic, with a touch of uncertainty and a...

Plot: From his early days as a jazz pianist to his 54 Oscar® nominations and five wins, the documentary takes an in-depth look at Williams’ countless contributions to film including many iconic franchises, as well as his music for the concert stage and his impact on popular culture. The film features interviews with artists and filmmakers whose lives have been touched by his timeless music.

Review: There is no one like John Williams. From Star Wars to Superman to Jurassic Park to Harry Potter and beyond, Williams has left an indelible mark on the landscape of cinema and music in general. In his nineties, John Williams became synonymous with movie soundtracks thanks to his collaborations with George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and several other filmmakers and film franchises. The new documentary Music By John Williams, directed by the composer’s longtime friend and documentarian Laurent Bouzereau, is an ode to Williams’ creative...

From the deep, quickening heartbeat of “Jaws” to the astral opening blast of “Star Wars,” the music of John Williams not only earns its place among the most iconic film scores of all time, but it also proves memorable enough to carry with us out of the cinema. So effective are his themes that to hum just a few notes of a Williams score is to be caught up in the same emotions you felt gazing up at the big screen in the first place, watching Superman take flight over Manhattan or Elliott and E.T. bicycle across the moon.

At age 92, the maestro has received no shortage of accolades — from institutions, admirers and his peers in the Academy — and yet, Williams has long resisted requests to turn the cameras around on him. “Music by John Williams” does just that, featuring extensive interviews with the composer, plus glowing endorsements from...

There were great cinema composers before John Williams and there will be great composers after him. And yet, through his seven-decade career, he towers over everyone else. His music is not only iconic, but the movies we revere as classics wouldn’t have acquired such legendary status if not for his scores.

“Jaws” without John Williams isn’t “Jaws.” “Star Wars” without John Williams isn’t “Star Wars.” Although he only handles the music, the composer has left such a mark on cinema history that he makes a case as co-author of some of Hollywood’s biggest triumphs.

Director Laurent Bouzerau gives the full spotlight to the composer in the new documentary, “Music by John Williams.” Bouzerau is fully comfortable in his mode as celebrating Williams and his legacy, which is fine. I’m not sure I was looking for someone to “rip the lid off” the subject, and while...

Few people are more integral to film culture than John Williams. The famed composer not only crafted dozens of the most iconic soundtracks of the last fifty years but also some of the most memorable music in human history. Music By John Williams, a new documentary about the man and his career, tracks his incredible journey. The impact of the sounds he crafted remains impossible to quantify. Combining the beautiful footage of Williams’ filmography with present-day interviews, director Laurent Bouzereau provides a loving tribute to the man.

Related “I just couldn’t stop laughing”: John Williams’ Devotion to Star Wars Proves Why He’s the Greatest Composer Alive Music By John Williams follows his historic career.

Like most biographical documentaries, Music By John Williams does not attempt to present a new narrative around his career. Instead, Bouzereau takes us step by step through his career. After showing promise as a young musician and pianist,...

John Williams has composed some of the greatest pieces of music in the history of cinema. From Jaws to Star Wars to Indiana Jones, his multiple collaborations with other Hollywood legends like Steven Spielberg have resulted in a plethora of instantly recognizable pieces of music that have inspired generations of filmmakers, writers, and actors.

Williams’ career in the movie business has spanned over fifty years, netting him several Emmy, BAFTA, and Academy Awards. To celebrate the maestro’s monumental achievements, The Walt Disney Company has commissioned a new documentary that will premiere very soon on Disney+.

“Music by John Williams”, directed by Laurent Bouzereau and produced in part by Spielberg, will feature “…interviews with Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Kate Capshaw, Gustavo Dudamel, J.J. Abrams, Chris Martin, Ron Howard, Chris Columbus, George Lucas, Itzhak Perlman, Lawrence Kasdan, Yo-Yo Ma, Ke Huy Quan, James Mangold, Alan Silvestri, David Newman, Thomas Newman,...

Oscar winner John Williams is the subject of a new documentary coming to Disney Plus. “Music by John Williams” from Lucasfilm Ltd, Amblin Documentaries, and Imagine Documentaries, which offers a fascinating and insightful look at the prolific life and career of the legendary composer, will hit the streamer and have a limited theatrical release in New York, Los Angeles, and London on November 1. The documentary will also open the 38th edition of AFI Fest on October 23. Watch the trailer below.

From his early days as a jazz pianist to his 54 Oscar nominations and five wins, the documentary takes an in-depth look at Williams’ countless contributions to film, including many iconic franchises, as well as his music for the concert stage and his impact on popular culture. The film features interviews with artists and filmmakers whose lives have been touched by his timeless music. Directed by award-winning filmmaker and best-selling author Laurent Bouzereau,...

How can you put into a few words the ineffable career of John Williams? It's hard to even imagine, but the newest documentary about the maestro Music By John Williams will try. The feature will look at the career of the greatest film composer of all time when it streams on Disney+ on November 1.

The official trailer showcases people who have worked with Williams for decades such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Kathleen Kennedy to discuss their long time friend. "Star Wars would basically not be Star Wars without Johhny Williams' music," Lucas says in the trailer while the main theme of the franchise billows in the background.

"The minute John raises his baton and plays the first theme," Kennedy shares, "You just go, 'Oh my God! Here's another one!'" This is true as Williams has defined generations worth of movies and TV shows. Besides Star Wars, he...

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is asking viewers to be the jury for the Menéndez brothers. The infamous Beverly Hills siblings murdered their parents in 1989, and were convicted in 1996, but today’s more comprehensive understanding of sexual abuse has sparked renewed interest in the case.

“[The show’s] about the consequences of trauma,” Javier Bardem, who plays the father, José, told Variety at the series Los Angeles premiere on Monday. “Unless [it is] properly addressed and healed, it’s going to have a huge, horrible, dramatic effect on generations to come.”

The cast and creatives of the series described its “Rashaman” approach to the story.

“We wanted to really present a lot of different points of view, and then let the audience sort of decide what to take,” writer and producer David McMillan said. “We are talking about real people … many of them are still alive. We want to make sure that our...

It's probably fair to say "The Shawshank Redemption" is a modern classic. The prison drama became a home video and TV staple, watched and re-watched over and over again. Based on a novella by Stephen King, it's one of the best King movies — a fact that King himself even agrees with. "When I first saw it, I realized [the director] made not just one of the best movies ever done from my work, but a potential movie classic," the author once said. Directed by Frank Darabont, who also helmed the King adaptations "The Green Mile" and "The Mist," "The Shawshank Redemption" tells the story of Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins. In 1947, Andy is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover — a crime he didn't actually commit, despite evidence to the contrary. Andy is sentenced to life in prison, and he's sent to Shawshank State Prison in Maine.

As you might imagine,...

AFI Fest will feature a lot of music by John Williams.

Laurent Bouzereau’s new documentary, Music by John Williams, is set to have its world premiere on opening night of the 2024 edition of the Los Angeles film festival, which will be presented by new exclusive sponsor Canva with additional support from Fiji Water. The 38th AFI Fest kicks off Oct. 23 and runs through Oct. 27 at Hollywood’s Tcl Chinese Theatres.

Hailing from Lucasfilm, Amblin Documentaries and Imagine Documentaries, Music by John Williams is billed as comprehensive look at the life and legendary career of the prolific composer who has been nominated for 54 Oscars and won five. In 2016, he was presented with an AFI Life Achievement Award, which made him the first composer to receive the honor. Williams, now 92, has so many credits on his résumé (hundreds) that there’s not enough space to fit them all here. But he...

“Music by John Williams,” a documentary chronicling the life and accomplishments of legendary Oscar-winning composer John Williams, will open AFI Fest, the American Film Institute announced Thursday.

The film will hold its world premiere at the 38th annual festival on Oct. 23. It will then have a limited theatrical run before dropping Nov. 1 on Disney+.

Produced by Lucasfilm, Amblin Documentaries and Imagine Documentaries, “Music by John Williams” is described as “a comprehensive look” at Williams’ prolific life and career. From his early days as a jazz pianist to his 54 Oscar nominations and five wins, the doc spotlights Williams’ contributions to the moving image arts, music for the concert stage and impact on popular culture.

Featured in the doc are interviews with Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Kate Capshaw, Gustavo Dudamel, J.J. Abrams, Chris Martin, Ron Howard, Chris Columbus, George Lucas, Itzhak Perlman, Lawrence Kasdan, Yo-Yo Ma, Ke Huy Quan, James Mangold,...

“The Long Goodbye,” “Home Alone,” “Harry Potter,” “Star Wars,” “Jurassic Park” — these are just a few of the legendary films composer and conductor John Williams has scored throughout his 72 (!) year career. At the 95th Academy Awards in 2023, he became the oldest Oscar nominee in any category for his work on Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” then beat that record again the following year, being nominated in Best Original Score for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” This is in addition to his other 52 Academy Award nominations and five wins. To honor his storied career, Lucasfilms Ltd., Amblin Documentaries, and Imagine Documentaries have joined forces to produce the documentary, “Music by John Williams,” which will have its world premiere on Wednesday, October 23 at the 38th edition of AFI Fest presented by Canva.

The documentary aims to celebrate the life and legacy of John Williams, his countless contributions to the medium of film,...

The American Film Institute has announced that Music By John Williams, a documentary on the iconic film composer from Lucasfilm Ltd, Amblin Documentaries and Imagine Documentaries, will world premiere as the opening night film of the 38th AFI Fest on Wednesday, October 23.

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau, the doc is billed as a comprehensive look at Williams’ life and career, from his early days as a jazz pianist to his 54 Oscar nominations and five wins, celebrating his countless contributions to the moving image arts, music for the concert stage as well as his indelible impact on popular culture.

One of the most influential film composers in history, who in 2016 became the first to receive AFI’s Life Achievement Award, Williams’ work spans top-tier franchises like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter and Jurassic Park, as well as such classic one-offs as Jaws, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Schindler’s List. Over the course of his career,...

The world premiere of the documentary Music By John Williams from Lucasfilm Ltd, Amblin Documentaries and Imagine Documentaries will open the 38th edition of AFI Fest on October 23.

Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, and Brian Grazer are among the producers and Laurent Bouzereau directs.

The film explores the life and career of Williams, from his early days as a jazz pianist to his 54 Oscar nominations and five wins, and his profound impact on popular culture.

Music By John Williams features interviews with George Lucas, Spielberg, Kennedy, Gustavo Dudamel, J.J. Abrams, Howard, Chris Columbus, Yo-Yo Ma, James Mangold,...

The 1995 film "12 Monkeys" was one of the few times a Terry Gilliam film wasn't beset with chaos and production problems. Gilliam is notoriously unlucky — not to mention incredibly headstrong — so many of his features were only made after last-minute disasters, deaths, or other major catastrophes. One can see Gilliam's unluckiness in play in Keith Fulton's and Louis Pepe's 2002 documentary "Lost in La Mancha," which traced the director's first, stalled attempt to make "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote." Also, one doesn't need to be a deep-cut cineaste to know all about the issues Gilliam had with his 1983 sci-fi film "Brazil," a picture that was re-cut multiple times.

For "12 Monkeys," though, everything seemed to work out okay. Based on Chris Marker's 1962 short film "La Jetée," the film begins in 2035 after most of humanity has been killed by a lethal virus. Survivors were forced into underground prisons,...

Regardless of its importance to the storytelling process, film music is too often an afterthought. There are a variety of theories that composers have as to why, and they’re mostly related to a lack of education. So I’ve decided to take an active stance in educating filmmakers about the role of music in film and the process of how a film score comes into being.

My hope is that by the end of this piece you’ll be more familiar with: A) the history of film music in general, and B) the key composers who have contributed to the development of film music as an art. So—where did this all start?

The Silent Era (1890s-1929) Silent film star Mary Pickford. Somewhere, a pianist is inspired.

During the silent era, films music is provided by each individual theater, either by phonograph or as performed live by flesh-and-blood musicians.

Hans Zimmer is now among the pantheon of great music composers in films of the 21st Century alongside masters like John Williams, Thomas Newman, Danny Elfman, A.R Rahman, and many others. His musical contribution to films like Dune, Gladiator, Interstellar, The Last Samurai, etc elevated the proceedings of the films and added a certain mood to them.

Hans Zimmer in The Jonathan Ross Show / YouTube

In addition to live-action films, he also scored many successful animated films such as Kung Fu Panda, The Prince of Egypt, and The Lion King. The famed composer always puts a part of himself in the music he creates. However, with The Lion King, his late father became his muse and the tragedy involving him inspired the darker musical score in the film.

The Lion King‘s Somber and Dark Musical Score Was Inspired By Hans Zimmer’s Personal Life

The Lion King is among...

Welcome to a world where transformation is the only constant. Yorgos Lanthimos, the genius behind cinematic classics, brings you “Kinds of Kindness”, set to premiere in cinemas this Friday.

From the intriguing minds of screenwriters Efthymis Filippou and Lanthimos himself, comes a fable crafted into a distinctive form – a triptych. Three interwoven narratives unravel tales of personal struggle, spectral deception, and the relentless pursuit of a prodigious spiritual leader.

A star-studded ensemble, featuring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Joe Alwyn, brings to life these stories set in surreal landscapes.

Each tale portends a transformation: a man entrapped, striving to regain command of his life; a policeman haunted by the spectral return of his wife, who vanished at sea and now bears an unrecognizable semblance; and a woman on a determined quest to find an individual with a rare gift, who is foreseen...

When TCM channel host Dave Karger used to be a writer for Entertainment Weekly in his early days as a print journalist, he would focus a great deal on interviewing the big pop stars of the day, along with his duties on the film beat. But little did very many people suspect then that what he really wanted to be writing about was “Laura”… not Branigan, but David Raksin’s music for the classic 1945 noir. That was the film that really prompted Karger’s lifelong love of movie scoring.

“His score for ‘Laura’ really turned me on to classic film music, and film scores in general,” says Karger. “And then you go back and you learn that in 1945, there were 20 Oscar nominees that year in the category of best score for a non-musical film — and David Raksin wasn’t even one of the 20 nominees. That’s a score that has...

Songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are on the verge of Egot status… that is, if Emmy voters nominate their song from “Only Murders in the Building” and it winds up winning three months from now.

Pasek and Paul — already Oscar winners for “La La Land” and Tony and Grammy winners for “Dear Evan Hansen” — could finally manage that feat with the witty comic patter song “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?,” sung by Steve Martin and co-written with fellow Tony and Grammy winners Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman for the third season of the Hulu comedy-drama.

They are among the many prominent songwriters who have entered songs in this year’s Emmy competition. Voting began Thursday, with approximately 550 members of the Television Academy music peer group eligible to vote in seven music categories. Voting ends June 24 and the nominations will be announced July 17.

Another pair of Oscar and Grammy winners,...

“Game of Thrones” composer Ramin Djawadi was honored with the BMI Icon Award at Broadcast Music Inc.’s 40th annual Film, TV and Visual Media Awards Wednesday night in Beverly Hills.

The Emmy-winning, Grammy-nominated composer was acknowledged for his “memorable scores and themes inspiring future generations of composers,” BMI president-ceo Mike O’Neill said in presenting the award.

Djawadi’s music for “Game of Thrones” became a sensation during the HBO fantasy series’ eight-season run, which concluded in 2019. He won two Emmys, for his music in the seventh and eighth seasons, and later conducted it with symphony orchestras and choirs during world tours in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

His other television credits include “Westworld,” “Prison Break” and the current fantasy and sci-fi series “House of the Dragon,” “3 Body Problem” and “Fallout.” Among his film credits are “Iron Man,” “Eternals,” “A Wrinkle in Time,” “Clash of the Titans” and “Pacific Rim,” and he has...

Jos Slovick performed the folk song in 1917, but it isn't included in the film's soundtrack. "The Wayfaring Stranger" symbolizes the soldiers' struggles in the film and adds to the nationalistic narrative of World War I. Fans petitioned for an official version of the song featuring Jos Slovick.

The climax of 1917, the World War I epic directed and co-written by Sam Mendes, features a heart-wrenching scene in the woods when a soldier from the last wave of the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment sings a folk song to his fellow soldiers. While the tune can be heard briefly within the official trailer for 1917 and within this single scene in the woods, the folk song isn't featured on the film's soundtrack. Consequently, its mystery has generated some interest in the music itself and the artist who performs it.

1917 is available to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video.

1917 stars George MacKay...

Who are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer? A great film or TV score is most potent as an artform when it reinforces the emotion on screen, but it also knows when music is not needed. What strategies do you employ to get this balance right? These were some of the topics discussed by four top TV composers when they joined Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2024 awards contenders: Julia Newman (“Feud: Capote vs. the Swans”), Sherri Chung (“Based on a True Story”), David Fleming (“Mr. and Mrs. Smith”) and Nami Melumad (“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”). Watch our fascinating full group roundtable panel above, and click on each name above to view each nominee’s individual interview.

See Watch our lively chats with over 300 of 2024 Emmy contenders

“I used to go to sleep when I was a...

“I wanted it to be alive more than anything, and there to be a sense of real delight and weirdness,” reveals “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans” composer Julia Newman about her score for the FX limited series. For our recent webchat she adds, “What I love so much about this show is that there’s no good guys, but we empathize at different moments with all of the characters. Everyone inhabits a real humanness and in inhabiting that humanness, of course, everybody is flawed. I loved the idea of Truman Capote always listening, always with the typewriter going on, as everybody was always scheming. It’s actually part of what makes the story so powerful. As shallow as human beings can get and as deep as human beings can get, what does it mean to be on your deathbed and to regret a friendship lost? That’s so profound. So,...

The Judge, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall, ranked seventh on Netflix's Top 10 chart with 12.5M hours viewed. At its release, The Judge received mixed reviews but was praised for the performances of Downey Jr. and Duvall. Despite criticism of being clichd, Downey Jr. and Duvall's performances in The Judge have endured and gained interest.

The Judge nabs a Top 10 spot on Netflix's global chart. The 2014 legal drama follows a morally ambiguous lawyer (played by Robert Downey Jr.) who returns to his hometown where his father and the local judge (played by Robert Duvall) is accused of murder, and as he seeks to uncover the truth, he reconnects with his estranged family. Other than Downey Jr. and Duvall, The Judge cast also includes Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Dax Shepard, and Billy Bob Thornton.

Now, a decade after its release, Downey Jr.'s legal drama has nabbed...

After a seven-year break, FX’s anthology series “Feud” is back with another installment of rivalry and gossip titled “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” telling the story of Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) and a high society New York City socialite group known as The Swans, which includes Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), Ann Woodward (Demi Moore) and Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald). The previous season of the Ryan Murphy docudrama that starred Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis nabbed 18 Emmy Award nominations and two wins. Let’s look back at their haul to see how it may impact this current season at the 2024 Emmys.

Here are the 2017 Emmy wins and nominations for “Feud: Bette and Joan”:

Best Limited/Movie Non-Prosthetic Makeup (Won)

Eryn Krueger Mekash, Makeup Designer

Robin Beauchesne, Assistant Makeup Department Head

Shutchai Tym Buacharern,...

Things are slowly heating up for the release of Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming movie, Kinds of Kindness, which is set to be released on June 21, 2024 in theaters. This is the Greek director’s next project after the award-winning hit Poor Things starring Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe, both of whom are returning for Kinds of Kindness as well, continuing their successful collaboration with the Oscar-nominated filmmaker. Ahead of the movie’s release, Searchlight Pictures has just released the first official teaser trailer for the upcoming movie.

Kinds of Kindness is based on an original script co-written by Efthimis Filippou Lanthimos himself. Lanthimos described the film as “a contemporary film, set in the US – three different stories, with four or five actors who play one part in each story,” confirming that Kinds of Kindness is going to be the first anthology movie in his career. Aside from the already-mentioned Stone and Dafoe,...

It is no secret that Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ career has been evolving quite nicely since his hit film The Lobster. The Greek director has gained numerous major awards and nominations, and with his recent hit film, Poor Things, winning several Academy Awards, we are pleased to confirm that his upcoming movie, Kinds of Kindness, will be released later this year – on June 21, 2024.

Unlike his two previous films, The Favourite and Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness will be based on an original script written by Lanthimos himself and Efthimis Filippou. It is going to be an anthology film, which the director himself described as “a contemporary film, set in the US – three different stories, with four or five actors who play one part in each story”. The actors in question include Lanthimos’ favorite collaborator, Emma Stone, as well as Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie,...

War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko won an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film tonight, marking the first Oscar win for filmmakers Dave Mullins and Brad Booker.

Set to the anti-war Christmas classic song by John Lennon and Yoko Ono “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”, the animated short follows two soldiers at the frontline of World War I as they play a chess game through carrier pigeon, unaware they are on opposing sides of the battle.

Related: ‘American Fiction’: Cord Jefferson Pleas With Hollywood To Give New Creatives A Shot While Accepting Award At 2024 Oscars

The filmmaking pair was joined on stage by executive producer Sean Ono Lennon, son of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who led the crowd in wishing his absent mom a happy (UK) Mother’s Day.

Related: Deadline’s Reviews Of All The Oscar Best Picture Nominees

“John Lennon and Yoko...

What Oscar records will be broken and which ones will remain intact at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony March 10. With a win, Billie Eilish, 22, and Finneas, 26, would become the youngest artists ever to win two Oscars before the age of 30. The pair won for James Bond theme “No Time to Die” in 2022, and are nominated this year for “What Was I Made For,” from “Barbie.” Only three individuals have clinched two Oscars before turning 30: Luise Rainer earned back to back Oscars by the time she was 28 for “The Great Ziegfeld” (1936) and “The Good Earth” (1937); Jodie Foster in 1989 for “The Accused” (age 26) and in 1992 for “The Silence of the Lambs” (29); and Hilary Swank in 2000 for “Boys Don’t Cry” (26) and in 2005 for “Million Dollar Baby” (29).

Meanwhile, Diane Warren faces a less enviable milestone with her 15th nomination for “The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot,” potentially tying with the late Alex North...