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Andy Serkis has wanted to make “Animal Farm” since he first read the book on a school bus as a kid. Now, after its premiere at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, he has realized his dream. But unlike he initially intended way back in 2012 when the adaptation was announced, the movie is animated and not motion capture.

“By definition, doing it as a live-action movie would have made it bleaker from the outset, darker, and the character designs that we were working on in the way that we were doing it was too heavy handed,” Serkis told The Wrap. “What the animated world gives you, which I’ve realized, is an innocence and a way of storytelling which allows the audience to connect and fill in the dots in a much more profound way. You can still have characters that are as meaningful and emotionally engaging, but you’re...

We are back today with another exciting movie recommendation from auteur creator Guillermo del Toro. Today’s pick is a classic actioner that del Toro previously praised via Twitter (it will absolutely never be X to me). The Crimson Peak director has nothing but love for this one. You can scope a quote from the post in question directly below.

While del Toro is surely an enthusiastic fan of the film, he’s far from the only one. The Train has a stellar Rotten Tomatoes critical approval rating of 94% with 18 reviews tallied. Additionally, the flick sits at a very respectable 89% audience approval score on the site.

Critics praised the film for delivering astute commentary on the evils of war and for serving up breakneck action sequences from start to finish.

If you have yet to experience the picture and find yourself eager to do so, make your way over to...

Academy voters had no love for Joker: Folie à Deux, but Batman leads the pack when it comes to comic book movies at the Oscars.

Many months ago, Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux seemed a likely Oscar contender at this weekend’s Academy Awards ceremony. Breaking the Batman mould, the 2018 original remains the most-nominated comic book movie to date with 11 nods, including Best Picture, Best Director, and a Best Actor win for Joaquin Phoenix.

With the addition of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn, the meta-fictional musical sequel came with more awards hype. This evaporated on contact with the movie’s lacklustre opening weekend, not to mention the disappointed reception from critics and fans.

(Full disclosure – I am blissfully ignorant of Phillips’ Joker movies, so won’t comment on either of them. Wherever you stand on them, it should suit everyone just fine if the worst movie that gets made...

Robert De Niro won his second Oscar in 1981 for playing a boxing champ in Raging Bull. And now he has been chosen as the acting champ when it comes to Academy Awards.

His performance for the Martin Scorsese film from 1980 has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actor winner ever, according to a Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts, critics, and editors, who ranked all 97 male leading actors.

Anthony Hopkins finished second for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), with Marlon Brando following in third for The Godfather (1972). Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood (2007), and Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird (1961) rounded out the top five.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actor winners is Warner Baxter for In Old Arizona (1928). George Arliss in Disraeli (1929), Lionel Barrymore for A Free Soul (1930), Paul Lukas for Watch on the Rhine (1942), and Paul Muni for The Story of Louis Pasteur...

Robert De Niro won his second Oscar in 1981 for playing a boxing champ in Raging Bull. And now he has been chosen as the champ of all actors.

His performance for the Martin Scorsese film from 1980 has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actor winner ever, according to a Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts, critics, and editors, who ranked all 97 male leading actors.

Anthony Hopkins ranked second for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), with Marlon Brando following in third for The Godfather (1972). Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood (2007), and Gregory Peck for To Kill a Mockingbird (1961) rounded out the top five.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actor winners is Warner Baxter for In Old Arizona (1928). Just above that film performance in the rankings are George Arliss in Disraeli (1929), Lionel Barrymore for A Free Soul (1930), Paul Lukas for Watch on the Rhine...

Winona Ryder rose to prominence immediately after making her film debut in 1986.Stranger Things/YouTube; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment/YouTubeAbigail Williams in 'The Crucible'mega

Winona Ryder plays the role of Abigail Williams in the 1996 film The Crucible. Directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Arthur Miller, the film explores the Salem Witch Trials involving girls in a small community. Ryder's character, who had an affair with Daniel Day-Lewis' John Proctor, tries to get revenge on his wife by framing her.

The Crucible also stars Paul Scofield, Joan Allen, Bruce Davison, Rob Campbell and Jeffrey Jones, to name a few.

Beth Macintyre in 'Black Swan'SearchlightPictures/YouTube

Starring as Beth Macintyre, also known as The Dying Swan, Ryder takes on the role and paves the way for Natalie Portman's Nina, a talented ballet dancer, in the film Black Swan. The 2010 flick also sees the rivalry between Nina and newcomer Lilly (Mila Kunis).

Following filming,...

John Wayne is an American institution, and that's kind of a pity. The films he made from the 1930s through the 1970s all presented what many consider the most persistent cinematic archetypes of old-world machismo. Wayne was a symbol of stalwart, unbending manliness, a testament to the power of being gruff and insoluble. It is, however, hard to accept him as a positive role model when one recalls how bigoted he was in life. Every few years, his 1971 interview with Playboy Magazine resurfaces and a new crowd discovers Wayne vaunting the values of white supremacy and flippantly excoriating minorities.

He also, in that interview, talked about the moral righteousness of his old Westerns, saying that Europeans were in the right for stealing American land from the First Nation people. He was pretty despicable.

But he was also one of the biggest movie stars of all time, and cinema lovers have...

Quick Links What is A Man for All Seasons? A Man for All Seasons Subverts All Expectations A Man for All Seasons Had Only One Real Competitor Striking Similarities to a 2024 Best Picture Contender

2025 will mark the 97th year of the Academy Awards. Winning an Oscar is the crown jewel of the film industry, and regardless of the category, it is every filmmaker's dream to earn that status. While every award is extremely coveted, the top prize of the night is, of course, Best Picture.

From 1927s Wings to 2023s Oppenheimer, the list of Best Picture winners is full of stone-cold classics that will remain relevant for eternity. While the winners are forever a part of film history for the truest of fans, not every film can maintain the relevance of a Forrest Gump or The Godfather. As the years go on and the list of winners expands, it is...

Historian Dr. Joanne Paul explains how A Man for All Seasons is one of the strongest onscreen depictions of the reign of Henry VIII and the Tudor period. Adapted from Robert Bolt's 1954 play of the same name, the 1966 period piece movie explored the career of Lord Chancellor Robert More (Paul Schofield), as he was challenged by the crisis brought about by King Henry VIII's (Robert Shaw) first divorce. The fifth-highest-grossing movie of 1966, A Man for All Seasons is acclaimed for its cast and production values, and celebrated as an influential example of filmmaking.

With YouTube channel History Hit turning its sights to Tudor England in their latest Historian Answers Google's Most Popular Questions, Dr. Paul tackled the question of which movie represents the period best.

Praising A Man for All Seasons, Paul stated that the movie offered "the best representation" of Henry VIII ever put on screen. The...

“Slow Horses” star Gary Oldman is the frontrunner to win Best Drama Actor at the upcoming Emmys. Oldman earned his first and only Oscar six years ago for his portrayal of World War II-era British prime minister Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour.” That win was sandwiched between two other lead bids for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2012) and “Mank” (2021). His sole Emmy nomination to date came in 2001 for his guest appearance in the two-part seventh season finale of “Friends”; he lost to Derek Jacobi (“Frasier”).

On Apple TV+’s “Slow Horses,” which is based on a series of novels by Mick Herron, Oldman plays Jackson Lamb, a particularly uncouth MI5 officer saddled with the responsibility of supervising a group of service rejects. This constitutes his very first regular role on a continuing series and his first live action TV performance at all in over two decades.

Oldman would be the 12th...

The horrors, thrills, and acts of bravery seen in World War II have constantly and consistently been a rich source of inspiration for writers and directors since VJ Day. Some of the most unforgettable cinematic images of our time, such as the girl with the red coat in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, Steve McQueen hopping over fences on his bike in The Great Escape, and Brad Pitt telling his subordinates about Jim Bridges and Apaches in Inglourious Basterds, have come from the largest global conflict on record. Some films have been able to seep into the public conscience and set box-office records and gather a host of awards nominations, all of which are justified. Some equally astounding films, however, just never managed to crack the zeitgeist and grip the public's imagination. One such film, one of the most thrilling and intense war films going, is John Frankenheimer's 1964 film The Train starring Burt Lancaster,...

To date, there are 24 distinguished individuals (living and deceased) who have won competitive Oscar, Emmy and Tony Awards. The Triple Crown of Acting, as it’s known — see the list below. And there’s no horsing around.

Glenda Jackson became the most recent person to join the club when she received the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in for “Three Tall Women” in 2018.

While the recent 77th Tony Awards didn’t produce another Triple Crown Acting champion (there was no Tony-less Oscar and Emmy winner in contention), it is possible that some unsuspecting thespian was put on course to becoming the 25th name on the list above. And so the awards plot thickens.

See Watch our lively chats with hundreds of 2024 Emmy contenders

I’ll appropriately start with Sarah Paulson, who accepted the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for “Appropriate.” (It marked her first Tony nomination.

The late actor was a commanding and versatile presence on the big screen, perfecting everything from villainy to sensuality in films such as Don’t Look Now and Klute

Donald Sutherland, Don’t Look Now and Hunger Games actor, dies aged 88Donald Sutherland: a life in pictures

Donald Sutherland was an utterly unique actor and irreplaceable star: possessed of a distinctive leonine handsomeness that the white beard of his latter years only made more majestic: watchful, cerebral, charismatic, with a refinement to his screen acting technique comparable perhaps only to Paul Scofield and his Canadian background (together with his early stage training and experience in England and Scotland) gave his American roles a certain touch of Anglo-international class. Sutherland was commanding and exacting, he gave each of his roles and films something special: he addressed his co-stars and the camera itself from a position of strength.

Even playing a weak or absurd character,...

Maleah Joi Moon has become the 101st performer to win a Tony Award for their first outing on a Broadway stage for her performance in the musical “Hell’s Kitchen.”

She won Best Actress in a Musical at the 77th Tony Awards for portraying Ali, a 17-year-old girl searching for her place in the world while living in the titular New York City neighborhood and also being restrained by her overbearing mother. She is the 10th person to win the category for her Broadway debut. She joins:

Elizabeth Seal, “Irma La Douce” (1961)

Anna Maria Alberghetti, “Carnival” (1962)

Liza Minnelli, “Flora the Red Menace” (1965)

Leslie Uggams, “Hallelujah, Baby” (1968)

Alexis Smith, “Follies” (1972)

Natalia Makarova, “On Your Toes” (1983)

Lea Salonga, “Miss Saigon” (1991)

Catherine Zeta-Jones, “A Little Night Music” (2010)

Cynthia Erivo, “The Color Purple” (2016)

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Other performers who pulled off this accomplishment in recent years include...

Jerry Herman’s musical “Hello, Dolly!” dominated the 18th Tony Awards which took place at the New York Hilton on May 24, 1964. “Hello, Dolly!” entered the ceremony with 11 nominations and walked out with ten awards including best musical, best actress for Carol Channing, original score for Herman and for Gower Champion’s choreography and direction.

Other musicals in contention for multiple awards that year were “High Spirits,” based on Noel Coward’s classic comedy “Blithe Spirit,” “Funny Girl,” which transformed Barbra Streisand into a Broadway superstar, and “110 in the Shade,” based on the straight play “The Rainmaker.”

Bert Lahr, best known as the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 classic “The Wizard of Oz,” won lead actor in a musical for “Foxy,” based on Ben Jonson’s “Volpone.” The musical was not a hit closed after 72 performances. Also nominated in the category was Bob Fosse for a short-lived revival of Rodgers and Hart’s “Pal Joey.

“I felt ashamed of myself for watching. No one should have a chance to see so much desire, so much need for a prize. And so much pain when [it] was not given … I felt disgusted with myself. As though I were attending a public hanging.”

Those were the words of the late Glenda Jackson, as she described to The New York Times her recent experience watching the Academy Awards on television in 1979.

Ironically, it was well after she had already been gifted with two Best Actress Oscars herself. She was not present to accept those honors — for 1970’s “Women in Love” and 1973’s “A Touch of Class.” She was also absent when she was Best Actress-nominated for 1971’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and 1975’s “Hedda.”

See Watch our lively chats with dozens of 2024 Emmy contenders

I have to wonder if Miss Jackson ever watched the now-infamous clip of her winning her...

Stephen Colbert is known for hosting The Late Show with Stephen Colbert since 2015. Taking over from legendary talk show host David Letterman, Colbert has brought his particular brand of humor to the table and has been successful at it. Colbert has also been nominated for the Emmys multiple times as the host of The Late Show.

Before he took over hosting duties from Letterman, Stephen Colbert was an actor who had produced sketch comedy series and was also a cast member of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. He has also featured in many TV shows in a supporting and voice role in shows such as The Office and The Simpsons. He recently spoke about his dream role as an actor and if he would ever get back to it.

Stephen Colbert Talks About Being An Actor Stephen Colbert with George Clooney in The Late Show | Credits: CBS

Stephen...

At the fifth annual Primetime Emmy Awards in 1953, Helen Hayes won the Best Actress award, thereby becoming the first performer to ever achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. This past Oscar and Tony recipient had now won all three of the American entertainment industry’s most prestigious acting prizes, demonstrating remarkable talent across film, stage, and television. Over the years, 14 women and nine men have followed in her footsteps. Scroll through our photo gallery to learn which two dozen entertainers belong to this exclusive group.

To be included on this list, an individual must have won each award in a competitive acting category. This excludes, for example, James Earl Jones, who was lauded with an honorary Oscar in addition to competitive Emmys and Tonys. Also left out are artists like Mel Brooks, John Legend, and Elton John, all or some of whose wins from the three organizations were for non-acting achievements.

Since the inception of the Academy Awards, the U.S.-based organization behind them has always strived to honor worldwide film achievements. Their extensive roster of competitive acting winners alone consists of artists from 30 unique countries, three of which first gained representation during the 2020s. The last full decade’s worth of triumphant performers hail from eight countries, while 42.1% of the individual actors nominated during that time originate from outside of America.

The academy’s history of recognizing acting talent on a global scale dates all the way back to the inaugural Oscars ceremony in 1929, when Swiss-born Emil Jannings (who was of German and American parentage) won Best Actor for his work in both “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Over the next three years, the Best Actress prize was exclusively awarded to Canadians: Mary Pickford (“Coquette”), Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”), and Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill...

Oppenheimer's multiple Oscar wins put lead actor Cillian Murphy in an exclusive actor club that should be easier to get into. Only five other biopics have won Best Picture and Best Actor at the Academy Awards prior to Oppenheimer. With biopics often winning Best Picture, it should be more common that they also take home Best Actor trophies.

Oppenheimer won big at the 96th annual Academy Awards, and its Oscars achievement puts Cillian Murphy in a very exclusive actor club — one that should, frankly, be easier to get into. It was no surprise that Oppenheimer collected multiple Oscar nominations in 2024, as Christopher Nolan's biopic was one of the most talked-about and highest-grossing movies of 2023. Many 2024 Best Picture predictions suggested Oppenheimer would take home the gold in that category. And with a total of 13 nominations overall, it was expected to take home multiple Oscars.

This proved an accurate analysis of Oppenheimer's chances,...

The BBC is celebrating the art of the literary adaptation by screening a variety of classics on BBC Four. More details here.

The BBC is quite rightly celebrated for its rich history of book to screen adaptations, such as the iconic 1995 version of Jane Austen’a Pride And Prejudice to Cbbc’s hugely successful adaptation of Dame Jacqueline Wilson’s Tracy Beaker series.

It has now put together a season of 14 adaptations from the BBC archive, some of which have rarely been seen since their original broadcast.

The dramas are:

The Great Gatsby

Toby Stephens, Mira Sorvino and Paul Rudd lead the cast in this 2000 BBC adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel on the American dream in the jazz age.

Small Island

Naomie Harris, Ruth Wilson, David Oyelowo, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ashley Walters star in this 2009 TV version of Andrea Levy’s novel focusing on the lives and...

In 1964 Barbra Streisand became a star when she opened the original Broadway production of “Funny Girl” as real-life actress, singer and comedian Fanny Brice. Despite rave reviews, she ended up losing the Tony for Best Actress in a Musical to Carol Channing for “Hello, Dolly!” But in 1968 Babs made her motion picture debut in a film adaptation of “Funny Girl” directed by William Wyler, reprising her role as Fanny. She went on to win the Oscar for Best Actress (famously in a tie with Katharine Hepburn for “The Lion in Winter”). In 1970 Eileen Heckart was Tony nominated for her featured performance as Mrs. Baker in “Butterflies are Free,” but lost to her co-star Blythe Danner. But in 1972 Heckart reprised her role in a film adaptation, which won her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

SEERay Richmond: Oprah discusses taking her ‘The Color Purple’ journey full circle following Thursday night world...

John Frankenheimer’s The Train opens with a heist of masterpieces of modern art from a Parisian museum. The operation, supervised by Wehrmacht colonel and aristocratic aesthete Franz Von Waldheim (Paul Scofield), is a desperate assertion of the Nazis’ supremacist ideologies during the final days of the German occupation of France. As such, it’s easy to perceive the museum curator’s (Suzanne Flon) appeals to the sense of national pride felt by the Résistance-Fer—a group of rail workers who were part of the French Resistance—as an attempt to fight fire with fire, specifically when she requests help from railway manager Labiche (Burt Lancaster). Which makes it all the more fitting that it’s not Labiche who jumpstarts the workers’ efforts to stop the train that’s moving the stolen paintings from leaving France, but tenacious train conductor Papa Boule, who’s played with curmudgeonly brio by one...

Samuel L. Jackson told The Times last year that he deserved to win the Oscar for best supporting actor over Martin Landau (“Ed Wood”) at the 1995 Academy Awards. In a new interview with Vulture, the actor said he was robbed of a second chance to win an Oscar just a couple years later with Joel Schumacher’s 1996 legal drama “A Time to Kill,” co-starring Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock. The John Grisham adaptation starred Jackson as a man on trial in Mississippi for killing the two men who raped his daughter.

“In ‘A Time to Kill,’ when I kill those guys, I kill them because my daughter needs to know that those guys are not on the planet anymore and they will never hurt her again — that I will do anything to protect her,” Jackson said. “That’s how I played that character throughout. And there were specific things we shot,...

Jodie Comer has become the 100th performer to win a Tony Award for their Broadway debut for her performance in the play, “Prima Facie.”

She won Best Actress in a Play for portraying Tess, a lawyer who concentrates in providing legal defense for men who are accused of sexual assault but soon has the unthinkable happen to her. She is the 11th person to win the category for her first outing on a Broadway stage. She joins:

SEE2023 Tony Awards: Every winner (and nominee) in all 26 competitive categories

Martita Hunt, “The Madwoman of Chaillot” (1949)

Beryl Reid, “The Killing of Sister George” (1967)

Phyllis Frelich, “Children of a Lesser God” (1980)

Jane Lapotaire, “Piaf” (1981)

Joan Allen, “Burn This” (1988)

Pauline Collins, “Shirley Valentine” (1989)

Janet McTeer, “A Doll’s House” (1997)

Marie Mullen, “The Beauty Queen of Leeane” (1998)

Jennifer Ehle, “The Real Thing” (2000)

Deanna Dunagan, “August: Osage County” (2008)

Below are the Broadway debuts in the seven other...

Since making his screen debut at age eight opposite his father, Lloyd Bridges, on TV’s “Sea Hunt,” Jeff Bridges has enjoyed an acting career that now spans a whopping 65 years. His resume mainly consists of film roles, but he has occasionally ventured back to the small screen, most recently as the star of “The Old Man.” Having already picked up Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance on the FX series, he is naturally one of the strongest contenders for this year’s Best Drama Actor Emmy. If his likely bid results in a victory, the Best Actor Oscar winner will join a distinguished group of leading men who were lauded by the film and then TV academies.

Bridges earned his first and only Oscar 13 years ago for his portrayal of recovering alcoholic country singer Bad Blake in “Crazy Heart.” He had previously...

Welcome to the Hammer Factory. This month we dissect Demons of the Mind (1972).

While Hammer Studios has been in business since 1934, it was between 1955 and 1979 that it towered as one of the premier sources of edgy, gothic horror. On top of ushering the famous monsters of Universal’s horror heyday back into the public eye, resurrecting the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Mummy in vivid color, the studio invited performers like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt and so many more to step into the genre limelight. Spanning a library housing over 300 films, Hammer Studios is a key part of horror history that until recently has been far too difficult to track down.

In late 2018, Shout Factory’s Scream Factory line began to focus on bringing Hammer’s titles to disc in the US, finally making many of the studio’s underseen gems available in packages that offered great...

National Geographic’s eight-part limited series “A Small Light” premiering May 1 tells the story of Anne Frank through the eyes of Miep Gies, the brave young woman who hid the Franks and four others in secret annex above Otto Frank’’s office in Amsterdam from the Nazis who were rounding up Jewish residents. Miep, who worked for Frank, was one of six people who took care of them. She was tasked with supplying them with meat and vegetables. Wrote Anne Frank: “Miep is just like a pack mule, she fetches and carries so much. Almost every day she manages to get hold of some vegetables for us brings everything in shopping bags on her bicycle.” Miep also brought them books.

The Nazis discovered their hiding place and on Aug. 4, 1944, they were arrested and sent to the death camps. Miep managed to save Anne’s notes and journals from the annex...

Anne Frank continues to resonate as perhaps the most famous symbol of Jewish suffering and persecution in the face of the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust during World War II. It was her teenage diary, after all, that remains perhaps the most vivid description of what it was like to live under Nazi occupation – specifically in Amsterdam between 1942 and ’44, while her family was in hiding and she wrote her famed remembrance of being sheltered out of view until a betrayal led to their being discovered.

It was a woman named Miep Gies, however, who provided a first-hand aural witness’s account of those hiding out in what came to be known as the Secret Annex. It’s her tale that’s told in “A Small Light,” a powerful eight-part limited series from NatGeo that premieres with a pair of installments on May 1 and streams the next day on Disney+. It...

There have been no shortage of retellings of Anne Frank’s iconic book “The Diary of a Young Girl.” From the time it was first published in 1947 as Het Achterhuis (The Secret Annex) in Dutch in a small edition of 3,036 copies and went on to become one of the most translated books in the world, it’s been adapted to every medium imaginable – from stage to screens big and small, as a musical, as a dance interpretation, even as a 2017 graphic diary. The first play version of “The Diary of Anne Frank” hit Broadway in 1955 and proved a rousing success, running more than 700 performances and earning its playwrights a Pulitzer Prize. A 1959 theatrical film directed by George Stevens earned eight Academy Award nominations and won three: for Shelley Winters as supporting actress as well as its cinematography and art direction/set decoration.

Yet throughout all of the wartime story’s many renderings,...

As one of Britain's most respected actors, John Hurt made an impression in even the smallest of roles. With his magnificent voice and distinctive appearance, he shone in every film in which he appeared, whether he was the lead or just making a cameo appearance. Even when he was the star, he invariably seemed more like part of the ensemble than a star in his own right like Sean Connery or Michael Caine. Perhaps this was due to his consummate professionalism and his ability to disappear into his roles. You never got the sense that he had much of an ego or, at the very least, cared less about personal vanity than making his characters feel authentic.

Below are just a handful of his finest film performances, ranked, although he had such a varied career that we could easily have made this a list of 20 best films and included his...

Viola Davis received her first ever Grammy nomination on Tuesday morning for narration of her audio book “Finding Me.” Since she has already won at the Oscars, Emmys and Tonys, the actress could become the 18th person to become an Egot champion if she wins at the Grammys in a few weeks. And it might be a bonanza of awards success coming soon as Davis has a strong film contender for Oscars and other events with “The Woman King.”

The previous champions of Egot are (in chronological order of achievement): composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer Alan Menken and actress/singer Jennifer Hudson.

SEEWho...

Sir Ian McKellen is not only one of the most celebrated actors working today, he is also one of the most beloved. Though he has thrived in the past as a villain, the world largely knows and adores him as the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

As the planet scrambled to regain its bearings in the aftermath of 9/11, the warmth and cautious wisdom of McKellen's Gandalf was a balm to the soul. We did not know at the time how we would find our way out of such dark days, and we have yet to truly shake free of its hold on our collective conscience, but whenever it feels as though evil has won, all you need to do is fire up Gandalf's advice to a despairing Frodo: "All we have to decide is what to do...

The only Oscar that Samuel L. Jackson has ever won is an honorary statue, but the acting icon doesn’t mind considering he’s spent over 10 years and counting playing the Marvel Cinematic Universe stalwart Nick Fury. As Jackson told the Los Angeles Times, he’d rather make billion dollar-grossing Marvel movies than win Oscars or chase down Oscar-baiting roles.

“As jaded as I wanted to be about it, you know thinking, ‘Well, I should have won an Oscar for this or should have won for that and it didn’t happen,’ once I got over it many years ago, it wasn’t a big deal for me,” Jackson said. “I always have fun going to the Oscars. I always look forward to getting a gift basket for being a presenter. [Laughs] I give stuff to my relatives; my daughter and my wife would take stuff out. It’s cool…But otherwise,...

Myles Frost became the latest addition to the list of people who have taken home a Tony Award for their Broadway debut. His win makes him the 98th member of this particular winners’ club.

Frost, who won Best Actor in a Musical for playing Michael Jackson in “Mj,” is the 13th person to win that category for their first time stepping into a character on a Broadway stage. He joins:

Ezio Pinza, “South Pacific” (1950)

Robert Alda, “Guys and Dolls” (1951)

Robert Lindsay, “Me and My Girl” (1987)

Brent Carver, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1993)

Alan Cumming, “Cabaret” (1998)

Hugh Jackman, “The Boy From Oz” (2004)

John Lloyd Young, “Jersey Boys” (2006)

Paulo Szot, “South Pacific” (2008)

David Álvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish (joint nomination), “Billy Elliot” (2009)

Douglas Hodge, “La Cage aux Folles” (2010)

See 2022 Tony Awards: Every winner (and nominee) in all 26 categories

Below are the Broadway debuts in the seven other acting categories that have...

Since his breakthrough performance as Mr. Darcy on the 1995 BBC miniseries “Pride and Prejudice,” Colin Firth has made stiff romantic characters his specialty, even going so far as to embody the Austenesque Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones film trilogy. He has, however, also demonstrated plenty of range over the last quarter century, and his newest role is perhaps his most demanding yet. The 61-year-old’s distinctively dark portrayal of convicted wife killer Michael Peterson on the HBO Max limited series “The Staircase” could earn him his first Emmy, which would nicely complement the Oscar already in his awards collection.

Firth won the favor of the film academy 11 years ago for starring as King George VI in “The King’s Speech.” This was his second consecutive try for a Best Actor Oscar, as he was first recognized for 2009’s “A Single Man.” His first and only Emmy nomination to date came...

Coming off their triumphant political thriller "Seven Days and May", Burt Lancaster and director John Frankenheimer went directly to France to begin filming another classic, the WWII adventure "The Train" (1964). Lancaster plays an everyday guy who is now a member of the French Resistance. The war is winding down and the Allies are closing in. Paul Scofield is the ruthless, elite German general with a fanatical obsession with "rescuing" the great works of art that had been removed from museums. He seeks to steal them for himself and has them loaded aboard a freight train in the hope to make it back to safer territory. Lancaster has been enlisted to stop him, as Scofield is stealing some of the nation's greatest art treasures. In the climax, shown here, the two men confront each other in a scene that is superbly played by Scofield, who made his feature film debut in "The Train". 

Spolier Alert!

Showbiz in Soho is artificial, gaudy and vulgar, but Laurence Harvey’s slick promoter-con man thinks he can cheat at the pop music game. Cliff Richard is his new discovery, a teen crooner who digs the bongo drums. Wolf Mankowitz’s portrait of talent, glitz, and double-dealing in music and TV showbiz also stars Sylvia Syms as a Soho stripper and Yolande Donlan as a singing star trying to make a comeback. The disc contains director Val Guest’s uncut original version.

Expresso Bongo

Blu-ray

Cohen / Kino Lorber

1959 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 111 106 min. / Street Date January 18, 2022 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Laurence Harvey, Sylvia Syms, Yolande Donlan, Cliff Richard, Meier Tzelniker, Ambrosine Phillpotts, Eric Pohlmann, Gilbert Harding, Hermione Baddeley, Reginald Beckwith, Avis Bunnage, Sally Geeson, Kenneth Griffith, Burt Kwouk, Wilfrid Lawson, Patricia Lewis, Barry Lowe, Martin Miller, Susan Hampshire, Peter Myers, Lisa Peake, The Shadows.

Cinematography: John Wilcox

Art Director:...

Samuel L. Jackson has a message for the Academy and it has nothing to do with the current drama surrounding the reformatted 94th Academy Awards telecast. Instead, Jackson wants Oscar voters to know that he should have an Academy Award under his belt at this point in his career. Although Jackson is being recognized with an Honorary Oscar this year, he’s only ever received one Oscar nomination: best supporting actor in 1995 for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction.”

“I should have won that one,” Jackson recently told The Times about his “Pulp Fiction” Oscar nomination. Jackson was nominated that year against Martin Landau (“Ed Wood”), Chazz Palminteri (“Bullets Over Broadway”), Paul Scofield (“Quiz Show”) and Gary Sinise (“Forrest Gump”). Landau was awarded the Oscar. Jackson said he missed out on another Oscar for “Jungle Fever,” for which he wasn’t even nominated. Two cast members from “Bugsy...

Only 16 people have won the awards grand slam known as the Egot. They are (in chronological order of achievement) composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and composer Alan Menken.

SEEWhich 16 people have the Egot?

There are a total of 26 entertainers who have won a combination of the Emmy, Oscar and Tony without a Grammy Award. The 13 living people are featured in this photo gallery because they could still achieve the Egot. They are actress Ellen Burstyn, actress Viola Davis, actor Jeremy Irons, actress Glenda Jackson, actress Jessica Lange, actress Frances McDormand, actress and singer Liza Minnelli, actress Helen Mirren, actor Al Pacino, actress Vanessa Redgrave, actor Geoffrey Rush,...

John Schlesinger decided not to attend the Academy Awards in 1970, even though his film “Midnight Cowboy” had been nominated for Best Picture and he was up for Best Director. On the evening of April 7, 1970, otherwise known as Oscar night, the British director remained in London with his American boyfriend, the photographer Michael Childers. Schlesinger didn’t want to make the brutal 24-hour roundtrip flight to Hollywood and back, and besides, he was well into production on his follow-up film, “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” For him, it was a very personal project, and, in some ways, an even more controversial film than “Midnight Cowboy.”

As Schlesinger explained it, the genesis of “Sunday Bloody Sunday” went back to the early 1960s when he was directing his first play for the Royal Shakespeare Company. “At the time, I had a very intense affair with one of the actors, a man who was bisexual,” Schlesinger recalled.

The Train is back, now at popular prices! The fan base for John Frankenheimer’s incredibly elaborate Occupation thriller is growing exponentially. The railroad and military hardware on view is 100% real, something that CGI-jaded moviegoers appreciate more than ever. Great acting and a terrific storyline propel a tale of sabotage into the top level of suspense thriller-dom. Starring Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau, Suzanne Flon, Michel Simon, Wolfgang Preiss. A hundred tons of French steam locomotives and running stock are shot at, burned, blown up and smashed to smithereens. Oh, the movie’s about saving French art treasures, too.

The Train

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1964 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 133 min. / Street Date January 5, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield, Jeanne Moreau, Suzanne Flon, Michel Simon, Wolfgang Preiss, Albert Rémy, Charles Millot, Jacques Marin, Howard Vernon, Bernard Fresson.

Cinematography: Jean Tournier, Walter Wottitz

Film Editors: David Bretherton,...

Only 15 people have won the awards grand slam known as the Egot. They are (in chronological order of achievement) composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice and composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

There are a total of 25 people who have won a combination of the Emmy, Oscar, and Tony without a Grammy Award. The 13 living people are featured in this photo gallery because they could still achieve the Egot.

The 12 deceased people are actor Jack Albertson, actress Anne Bancroft, actress Ingrid Bergman, actress Shirley Booth, composer Ralph Burns, actor Melvyn Douglas, director/choreographer Bob Fosse, actor Thomas Mitchell, actor Jason Robards, actor Paul Scofield, actress Maureen Stapleton, and actress Jessica Tandy.

For only the third time this decade, none of the acting winners at this year’s Tony Awards did so for their Broadway debut. This is the 21st time that this has happened over the 73-year history of these top theater honors. Most of the winners were actually on the opposite end of the spectrum, winning for the first time after years of Broadway experience and several nominations to their name including André De Shields, Celia Keenan-Bolger and Stephanie J. Block. Check out the complete list of winners here.

The previous instances of Broadway debuts being shut out at the Tonys were in: 1948, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1970, 1971, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1982, 1990, 1991, 1994, 2001-2003, 2012 and 2017.

Below, you can see the names of all 96 people who have won Tonys for their debut on the Great White Way.

SEE2019 Tony Awards: Best Musical ‘Hadestown’ sweeps with 8 wins, ‘The Ferryman’ takes Best Play

Best Actor In A Play: 16 winners

Paul Scofield, “A Man for All Seasons” (1962)

Cliff Gorman,...

The Egot — an acronym for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony — is the greatest honor in entertainment. These stars are (or were) close to achieving it.

Jack Albertson

Anne Bancroft

Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982)Emmy: Single Performance by an Actress, “Startime” (1960); Actress in Limited Series or Special, “A Woman Called Golda” (1982).Oscar: Actress, “Gaslight” (1944); Actress, “Anastasia” (1956); Supporting Actress, “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974).Tony: Actress (Dramatic), “Joan of Lorraine” (1947).No Grammys to Egot.

Shirley Booth

Ralph Burns Ellen Burstyn Viola Davis (1965 – ) Emmy: Actress in a Drama Series, “How to Get Away With Murder” (2015).Oscar: Actress, “Fences” (2016).Tony: Featured Actress in a Play, “King Hedley II” (2001); Actress in a Play, “Fences” (2010).No Grammys for Egot. Melvyn Douglas

Bob Fosse

Jeremy Irons (1948 – )

Emmy: Voiceover Performance, “The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century” (1997); Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, “Elizabeth I” (2006); Narrator, “Big Cat Week” (2014).Oscar: Actor, “Reversal of Fortune” (1990).Tony: Actor in a Play,...

John Frankenheimer’s 1965 World War II film is a admirable attempt to fuse the action genre with art-house drama ala The Wages of Fear. Thanks to Frankenheimer’s clean craftsmanship and star Burt Lancaster’s ambivalent performance – part rough and tumble leading man, part existential anti-hero – the movie succeeds on most counts. Burt is a resistance leader trying to retrieve a shipment of precious art from a da Vinci-loving Nazi played by Paul Scofield while New Wave icon Jeanne Moreau is on hand to abet Lancaster’s quest.

The post The Train appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Ari’el Stachel became the latest person to take home a Tony Award for their Broadway debut. This victory puts him in a freshman club that now has 96 members. Watch him discuss his victory in the Tonys press room in the video above.

Stachel, who won Best Featured Actor in a Musical for playing Haled in “The Band’s Visit,” is the ninth person to claim that particular honor for his first Broadway outing. He joins:

Harry Belafonte, “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac” (1954)

Sydney Chaplin, “Bells are Ringing” (1957)

Frankie Michaels, “Mame” (1966)

Wilson Jermaine Heredia, “Rent” (1996)

Dan Fogler, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” (2005)

Levi Kreis, “Million Dollar Quartet” (2010)

John Larroquette, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (2011)

Daveed Diggs, “Hamilton” (2016)

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Below are the Broadway debuts in the seven other acting categories that claimed Tony Awards.

Best Actor In A Play: 16 winners

Paul Scofield,...

Supporters of the Shakespeare Center of La for 25 years and counting, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were looking forward to performing opposite each other in Dan Sullivan’s production of “Henry IV,” Wilson shared with Variety at the opening night celebration of the play on Saturday.

But prior to rehearsals starting, which artistic director Ben Donenberg relayed were six days a week for eight hours a day for five weeks, Wilson had to bow out of the role of Mistress Quickly.

“I had another project, an independent, that I was attached to. Financing was good and fell out, good and fell out, until finally financing happened but only in a very specific timeframe. Because that project predated the play, I felt obligated to keep my word,” Wilson explained.

Tony-winner Rondi Reed replaced her in the role, alongside castmembers Joe Morton as the titular king, Hamish Linklater as Prince Hal, Harry Groener as Northumberland,...

Last week director Peter Jackson confirmed that Harvey Weinstein blacklisted Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino and kept them from being cast in The Lord of The Rings by telling Jackson that they were difficult to work with. Since then, Harvey Weinstein denied the claims. Peter Jackson wasn't having it, and he wrote a letter rebuking Weinstein and going in-depth telling the whole story of what happened. He also explains his side of the story and also apologizes for being "unwitting accomplices in harming their careers." After you read this letter, you see that Jackson is a class act. He also reveals a full list of alternate actors that he was looking to cast in the film! Here's his full statement:

Aspects of Harvey’s denial are insincere. He is basically saying that “this blacklisting couldn’t be true because New Line cast the movie”. That’s a deflection from the truth.

Turner Classic Movies' 2017 Gay Pride film series comes to a close this evening and tomorrow morning, Thursday–Friday, June 29–30, with the presentation of seven movies, hosted by TV interviewer Dave Karger and author William J. Mann, whose books include Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines and Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969. Among tonight's movies' Lgbt connections: Edward Albee, Tony Richardson, Evelyn Waugh, Tab Hunter, John Gielgud, Roddy McDowall, Linda Hunt, Harvey Fierstein, Rudolf Nureyev, Christopher Isherwood, Joel Grey, and Tommy Kirk. Update: Coincidentally, TCM's final 2017 Gay Pride celebration turned out to be held the evening before a couple of international events – and one non-event – demonstrated that despite noticeable progress in the last three decades, gay rights, even in the so-called “West,” still have a long way to go. In Texas, the state's – all-Republican – Supreme Court decided that married gays should be treated as separate and unequal. In...