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When the Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos last brought a film from the Venice Film Festival to the Telluride Film Festival, the Searchlight title, which counted Tony McNamara as a writer and Emma Stone as the biggest name in its cast, was greeted with rave reviews; went on to double-digits of Oscar nominations, including picture, directing and screenwriting mentions; and ultimately was awarded one statuette, best actress for its leading lady.

Could that exact history repeat itself five years after The Favourite? I think it’s very possible.

On Saturday night, a day after being unveiled on the Lido, Lanthimos’ latest work, Poor Things, had its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, playing simultaneously at the Werner Herzog Cinema and the Galaxy Theatre. And while more than a few attendees found the film — which I will only describe as Frankenstein meets Barbie, and which Searchlight will release on Dec.

Bella Baxter––whose organic internal makeup I’ll leave to shocking reveal––was born an adult woman. The furiously beating heart of Yorgos Lanthimos’s new film, Poor Things, she was found dead at the bottom of a bridge, an unknown life left behind her, and reanimated from Jane Doe into Bella (Emma Stone) by a bubble-belching monster. Though, that’s not what he calls himself.

Dr. Godwin Baxter––a professor-scientist who looks more like Frankenstein’s monster than Dr. Frankenstein, trenches carved through his compartmentalized face––calls himself God. He means it as a lighthearted joke, but Bella doesn’t understand it that way. To her, he is Creator. Godwin (Willem Dafoe) teaches her how to eat, breathe, sleep, shit, laugh, go outside––all the essentials. No mind his grotesque appearance, or that he involuntarily yap-croaks large oily bubbles while he eats, or the apparent character flaws: a foreboding workaholism,...

Peel back the layers of creature feature make-up and look beyond the gaudy, Gaudí-in-a-fishbowl sets, try to dim the swirling burlesque of guts and gore and pleasures of the flesh and you’ll find a rather classic – and classically appealing – Victorian coming-of-age tale at the center of Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things.”

That the film remains witty and wise throughout its most lurid stretches makes the Venice Golden Lion contender one of the year’s most unexpected heart-warmers. That the filmmakers lavish commensurate attention on all those bawdy embellishments also guarantees you a bloody good time along the way.

Reteaming with the director who pushed her to new highs in 2018’s “The Favorite,” Emma Stone outdoes herself with a role that deploys her (already considerable) comedic talent to superlative effect. As if born out of a mad-science experiment fusing “Frankenstein” with “Pygmalion,” her turn as Bella Baxter – a peculiar creation with the mind of an infant,...

Ever since breaking through internationally with Dogtooth in 2009, Yorgos Lanthimos has been making uniquely strange films. But there’s strange, and then there’s the nonstop bonkers brilliance of Poor Things, an audaciously extravagant adaptation of revered Scottish writer Alasdair Gray’s novel, spun out by the Greek director and his screenwriter, Tony McNamara, into a picaresque feminist Candide. Stuffed with rude delights, spry wit, radical fantasy and breathtaking design elements, the movie is a feast. And Emma Stone gorges on it in a fearless performance that traces an expansive arc most actors could only dream about.

Stone already scored one of her best roles in The Favourite, Lanthimos’ first collaboration with Australian writer McNamara. But she gets an absolute corker of a character to explore in Bella Baxter.

An Alice in Wonderland reanimated on the operating table of eccentric scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe) in a highly theatricalized version of Victorian London,...

On the same day that the BAFTA Awards weighed in with their choices on the best film and directing achievements of the year, the prestigious (and typically more telling of Oscar nominations) DGA Awards dropped their nominees, with some historic nods.

Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) became the ninth and tenth women ever to be nominated by the Directors Guild of America. Zhao is the first woman of color to ever be nominated. They join a small list of women that have been recognized by the large guild: Lina Wertmüller (“Seven Beauties”), Randa Haines (“Children of a Lesser God”), Barbra Streisand (“The Prince of Tides”), Jane Campion (“The Piano”), Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation”), Valerie Faris (who shared her nom with co-director Jonathan Dayton for “Little Miss Sunshine”), Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty”) and Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”). That brings the grand...

Annnd … action! The Directors Guild of America is out with the nominations for its 73rd annual DGA Awards for theatrical feature film and first-time feature. The guild, which unveiled its TV, commercials and documentary nominees on Monday, will announce this year’s winners during an April 10 virtual event.

A diverse group of helmers including two women and three persons of color is vying for the marquee Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film prize: Lee Isaac Chung (for Minari), Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman), David Fincher (Mank), Aaron Sorkin (The Trial of the Chicago 7) and Chloé Zhao (Nomadland).

The rookie feature helmers up for the First Time Feature prize also is a diverse group: Radha Blank (The Forty-Year-Old Version), Fernando Frías de la Parra (I’m No Longer Here), Regina King (One Night in Miami), Darius Marder (Sound of Metal) and Florian Zeller (The Father).

“Throughout these challenging and isolating times,...

Chloé Zhao, Emerald Fennell, David Fincher, Aaron Sorkin and Lee Isaac Chung have been nominated for best director of a feature film by the Directors Guild of America, which announced its film nominations on Tuesday.

Zhao and Fennell, who were nominated for “Nomadland” and “Promising Young Woman,” respectively, become only the ninth and tenth women ever nominated in the category in the 73-year history of the DGA Awards. This is the first time two women have been nominated in the same year.

Fincher was nominated for “Mank,” Sorkin for “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and Chung for “Minari.”

Directors who were not nominated this year include Spike Lee for “Da 5 Bloods,” Paul Greengrass for “News of the World,” George C. Wolfe for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and Shaka King for “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

In the relatively new category of Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film,...