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This August, Hulu is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the highly anticipated release of FX’s Alien series to the much-anticipated streaming release of Osgood Perkins‘ The Monkey. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Hulu next month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the ten best films that are coming to Hulu in August 2025 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Devil in a Blue Dress (August 1) Rt Score: 92% Credit – TriStar Pictures

Devil in a Blue Dress is a neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by Carl Franklin. Based on the 1990 novel of the same name by author Walter Mosley, the 1995 film is set in the late 1940s, and it follows an unemployed World War II veteran, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins,...

Lola Petticrew and Scoot McNairy have joined the untitled Liz Meriwether project loosely inspired by the 1987 movie Black Widow. They join the previously announced star Emmy Rossum, who will play an FBI Agent who uses the secrets from a female serial killer’s past to try and find her.

The 1987 movie Black Widow, written by Bass and directed by Bob Rafelson, follows two women: Catherine (Theresa Russell), who murders wealthy men whom she has married for their money, and Alexandra (Debra Winger), an agent with the Department of Justice who grows obsessed with bringing her to justice.

Meriwether executive produces alongside Rossum and Sara Moskowitz via Rossum’s Composition 8 banner, as well as Ron Bass, who wrote the 20th Century Fox-distributed 1987 film. 20th Television, where Meriwether has been based for a decade, and Searchlight TV are producing.

Petticrew is an Irish actor named one of Screen International’s Stars...

Exclusive: Searchlight Pictures is reuniting with Marielle Heller and Leah Holzer’s Defiant by Nature production shingle for an adaptation of bestselling novel The Glitch.

Defiant by Nature will produce with Perry Mason and Interview With the Vampire scribe Eleanor Burgess adapting from the Leeanne Slade novel. The project was based on an Audible Original.

The Glitch follows Grace Monroe, who after a failed birthday wish sends her fives years into the past, gets a rare chance to rewrite her story – this time, with her heart and career intact. But as she tries to outsmart fate and avoid the heartbreak she knows is coming, she discovers that some love stories are meant to happen, no matter the timeline.

SVP of Production Taylor Friedman is overseeing the project for Searchlight Pictures, reporting to Heads of Production and Development Katie Goodson-Thomas and DanTram Nguyen.

Defiant’s first release was a filmed version...

Spoiler Warning: This article contains plot details, including some spoilers, for “Materialists,” playing in theaters now.

“Materialists,” Celine Song‘s new film, is anchored by a charming lead trio: Dakota Johnson as matchmaker Lucy, Pedro Pascal as wealthy bachelor Harry and Chris Evans as Lucy’s ex-boyfriend John. But the film opens up beyond those leads, as Lucy comes across a wide range of New Yorkers, each more eccentric than the other. Song makes each character memorable — no matter how briefly they are shown. The result is a strong and lively supporting cast made up of actors at the top of their game, who you’ll likely recognize from other roles.

And those actors are often New Yorkers in real life. That was intentional for the film’s casting director, Douglas Aibel, who also runs the New York theater company, Vineyard Theater. He wanted each actor to be “believably New York.

Among the best things in The President’s Cake are the colors. There’s the deep red of a rooster’s comb as it peeks out from a young girl’s carrying pouch; there’s the white decorations that adorn her uncle’s blue car; and then there is the opening vista, in which a deep evening sky is disturbed by the roar of two American fighter jets. We’re somewhere in the ’90s, the country is Iraq, and the decorations are for its president, Saddam Hussein. Soon the camera will peel away to reveal a group of villagers lining up for water. If this is the length people are going for basic requirements, you soon begin to wonder: what chance does anyone have of finding baking soda?

Hasan Hadi’s Cake premiered in Directors’ Fortnight and won the audience award. Then, at the closing weekend, it was given Cannes’ coveted...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and India for Cannes Caméra d’Or winner The President’s Cake by Iraqi director Hasan Hadi.

The film, which debuted in Directors’ Fortnight, also proved a crowdpleaser in the Cannes parallel section, winning its People’s Choice audience award.

Deadline critic Pete Hammond also fell for the film describing it as a “a true gem and a real discovery”. Check out his review here.

New York-based Hadi has tapped into his own childhood in southern Iraq in the 1990s, growing up under the regime of President Saddam Hussein and the socio-economic crisis provoked by international sanctions, for the film.

The drama follows nine-year-old Lamia who gets the short straw of having to provide a birthday cake for her classmates to celebrate the president’s birthday. Gathering the ingredients for the mandatory cake at a...

Vertical has acquired North American, U.K. and Ireland distribution rights to Max Tzannes’ horror-comedy film “Found Footage: The Making of The Patterson Project.” Directed and written by Tzannes and co-written by David San Miguel, “Found Footage” features editing and cinematography from Jacob Souza — together, the three make up the Dirty Shot Clean film collective.

“Dirty Shot Clean was thrilled to collaborate with filmmakers whose genre-bending movies have had such a profound influence on our work,” said Tzannes in a statement. “We wanted to tell a story that celebrates and subverts the found footage tropes we all know and love, while also poking fun at the terrifying experience of making an independent horror film.”

According to a synopsis, “Found Footage” follows “a crew of acclaimed documentarians as they chronicle a young filmmaker’s quest to create the world’s greatest found footage horror film.” Inspired by films like “This is Spinal Tap...

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all rights in North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, South East Asia and India to Iraqi drama The President’s Cake, winner of the Camera d’Or and Directors’ Fortnight People’s Choice Award at this month’s Cannes festival.

Written and directed by Hasan Hadi as his feature debut, the film is set in 1990s Iraq, where a nine-year-old girl uses her wits and imagination to make the cake all schools are mandated to prepare to celebrate the birthday of the country’s president.

The film is produced by Leah Chen Baker with executive producers...

Hailed by Variety as a “warm and heart-tugging tale,” Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake,” Iraq’s first film selected for Cannes, has won the Directors’ Fortnight People’s Choice prize, the first audience award at Cannes and a Directors’ Fortnight plaudit which take into consideration any film from any part of the world.

The prestigious award builds on auspicious early major territory sales for the film, sold by Films Boutique, which bid fair for a broad international roll out.

News of the Director’s Fortnight People’s Choice prize comes as Belgian Valéry Carnoy has won a second partner prize in the Directors’ Fortnight, scooping the Sacd Coup de Cœur des Auteurs prize for “Wild Foxes,” adding to its Europa Cinemas Cannes Label for best European film at Directors’ Fortnight, announced just an hour ago. The double whammy establishes the Belgian director as a director to track.

A U.

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

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

Films Boutique has sold Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake,” which had its world premiere in Cannes sidebar Directors’ Fortnight, to multiple territories.

The film was picked up by Lucky Red for Italy, Atalante for Spain, Rialto Distribution for Australia/New Zealand, Filmcoopi for Switzerland, Cinobo for Greece and Nitrato Filmes for Portugal.

Negotiations are underway for the U.K., Turkey, Scandinavia, Latin America, Austria and the Middle-East.

As previously announced, Tandem has the film in France, and September Film has it in Benelux. North American rights are handled by UTA/WME.

“The President’s Cake” takes place in 1990s Iraq when people across the country are struggling to survive food shortages. It is at this time that Saddam Hussein requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday.

Despite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen from among her classmates. The girl...

Stay at a film festival long enough, and you will eventually notice certain shared themes and connective tissues between movies. Even then, the happenstance link between Hasan Hadi’s compassionate directorial debut “The President’s Cake” and Fatih Akin’s quiet epic “Amrum” is something of a shock, as both movies send their young protagonists onto grand quests to gather around basic supplies like flour, sugar, eggs and so on at times of tragic scarcity born under dictators.

Then again, as specific as this plot similarity is, perhaps its emergence shouldn’t be that much of a surprise, considering the current, war-torn state of the world that’s once again victimizing children. Filmmakers trying to navigate our present-day realities would dig into their own pasts and memories. With “The President’s Cake,” Hadi has done exactly that, closely following his lead-character Lamia.

It’s Iraq in the 1990s — as Hadi remembers it.

Lantern-lit waterways and long, thin boats used by villagers and children for trips to market and school is not an image contemporary audiences hold of Iraq, especially during the brutal regime of its notorious fifth President, Saddam Hussein. Political narratives often obscure the earthier knowledge that modern Iraq used to be Mesopotamia, considered by many as the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of the first written story in human history. The epic of Gilgamesh dwarfs any legend surrounding said dictator, whose ironclad, decades-long reign made desperate, repressed plebeians of the citizenry, and whose playbook included requiring all schools to assign a student to bake a cake to celebrate his birthday. All of this at a time when Un-backed sanctions deepened poverty and created widespread shortages of food and medicine.

Aptly then, and in the spirit of resistance, Iraqi filmmaker Hasan Hadi opens his debut feature, “The President’s Cake,” with a clairvoyant line from Gilgamesh,...

Perhaps the most surprising thing about today’s world premiere of The President’s Cake in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival is that it isn’t in the main Competition at the Grand Lumiere. It is head and shoulders above some of those films I have seen there, but no matter how you find it, this is a true gem and a real discovery from Hasan Hadi. With the right distributor, it could turn out to be Iraq’s first nominee for an Oscar. Yes, it is that good, and coming from a country that barely has movie theaters or any history of cinema, that is saying a lot. This is the first major film from Iraq ever to play in Cannes.

Set in 1990s Iraq as dictator Saddam Hussein ruled the land, this is a slice of life actually shot in the country and a...

Iraqi writer/director Hasan Hadi finds a most unusual way into the story of Saddam Hussein, who served as president of his country until the U.S. invasion in 2003 overthrew his reign, which was marked by terror and tyranny.

In Hadi’s film “The President’s Cake,” the story is told via a nine-year-old girl, Lamia (Banin Ahmad Nayef), who is forced, as part of a ritualistic school celebration of their Iraqi president, to prepare him a cake. “The President’s Cake” premieres in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight this Friday, May 16, and is looking for distributors around the world. IndieWire shares a clip below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “While people across 1990s Iraq struggle to survive the war and food shortages, Saddam Hussein requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday. Despite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen among her classmates. The...

Sales agency Films Boutique has closed two key territories on Iraqi writer/director Hasan Hadi’s “The President’s Cake” ahead of its world premiere in Directors’ Fortnight during the Cannes Film Festival.

The film has been acquired in France by Tandem and Benelux by September Film.

“The President’s Cake” takes place in 1990s Iraq when people across the country are struggling to survive food shortages. It is at this time that Saddam Hussein requires each school in the country to prepare a cake to celebrate his birthday.

Despite her efforts to avoid getting picked, 9-year-old Lamia is chosen among her classmates. The girl must now use her wits and imagination to gather ingredients for the mandatory cake or face the consequences.

“The President’s Cake” was filmed entirely in Iraq with a cast of local non-actors, who included Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Sajad Mohamad Qasem, Waheed Thabet Khreibat and Rahim AlHaj.

Hadi...

Exclusive: Films Boutique has boarded world sales on Hasan Hadi’s Iraqi debut feature The President’s Cake, which was selected for Cannes sidebar Directors’ Fortnight earlier this month.

Written by Hadi, the film is set in 1990s Iraq and follows nine-year-old Lamia, who is selected for the intimidating role of baking Saddam Hussein’s birthday cake. She must use her wits and imagination to gather the ingredients to make the mandatory cake, or face the consequences.

Filmed entirely in Iraq, the Iraq-us-Qatar co-production is produced by US producer Leah Chen Baker, whose credits include Sundance 2022 feature Palm Trees and Power Lines.

Exclusive: Range Media Partners has signed production company Cold Iron Pictures and its founder & CEO, producer, writer, director and actor Miranda Bailey, for management.

Cold Iron Pictures has backed some of the most acclaimed indies of the last decade, including the Daniels’ first feature, Swiss Army Man, Mike Birbiglia’s improv troupe dramedy Don’t Think Twice, Marielle Heller’s Independent Spirit Award-winning debut feature The Diary of a Teenage Girl, and the thriller God’s Country starring Thandiwe Newton which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, among other titles.

Cold Iron’s latest feature, By Design — an avant-garde body swap comedy from writer-director Amanda Kramer — premiered to strong reviews at Sundance 2025 and is being represented for domestic sales by Range Select. Also behind the 2024 Tribeca coming-of-age drama Jazzy, which was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, the company’s first TV series, Kit Williamson’s Unconvention, was picked up as a...

As the industry encounters a wave of diversity, equity and inclusion rollbacks, Amy Adams, filmmaker Karyn Kusama and Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger are booked to discuss representation in front of the next generation.

The trio will participate in a student-led Q&a panel as part of the Archer Film Festival at the Writers Guild Theater in Los Angeles on April 11. The chat, for Archer School for Girls students and aspiring filmmakers, is designed to focus on “pressing questions of how to create meaningful change for women in film, both in front of and behind the camera, within a rapidly shifting industry,” per the school.

The Archer Film Fest is an entirely student-led and organized effort that seeks to empower female filmmakers and amplify underrepresented voices. In addition to the Q&a, the fest will screen a selection of finalist films. More than 300 student-produced film submissions were received from more than 30 countries.

When there aren’t Avengers to save you, who you do call on in world-ending circumstances? You plump for the members of Thunderbolts*, with a ragtag bunch of anti-heroes and former villains teaming up in search of a bigger purpose. The new issue of Empire gets the inside story on the MCU’s most unexpected movie yet – and you can find it on newsstands from Thursday 13 March.

Before it hits the shelves, here’s a sneak peek inside the issue.

Thunderbolts*

Get ready for a very different kind of Marvel team-up. Empire goes on set of Thunderbolts*, speaking to the likes of Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, director Jake Schreier – and many more – about the misfits and misanthropes tasked with saving the world.

The Last Of Us: Season 2

Bring on the tears and the terror – The Last Of Us returns for Season 2, bigger and bleaker than before. Empire goes...

Celebrating women directors and their incredible contributions to filmmaking, the new book “Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words” includes a brief history about groundbreaking trailblazers, in-depth interviews with singular female directors, and a comprehensive list of noteworthy talents and their films from author, critic, and IndieWire contributor Marya E. Gates.

The filmmakers interviewed for the upcoming book are: Allison Anders, Gillian Armstrong, Lizzie Borden, Jane Campion, Martha Coolidge, Julie Dash, Josephine Decker, Cheryl Dunne, Bette Gordon, Marielle Heller, Miranda July, Karyn Kusama, Mary Lambert, Mira Nair, Sally Potter, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Isabel Sandoval, Susan Seidelman, and Katt Shea.

IndieWire shares an exclusive excerpt from Gates’ introduction below.

I first became aware that women could direct films when I was eight years old and my mother took me to see Gillian Armstrong’s “Little Women.” That movie affected me deeply and has remained my favorite film ever since.

“Shōgun” dominated with three wins at the Writers Guild Awards on Saturday evening — including best drama, while “Hacks” scored two on the TV side, including best comedy. In film, “Anora” and “Nickel Boys” scored big wins, giving both entries a bit more momentum as Oscar voting ends on Tuesday. “Anora,” coming off Critics Choice, DGA and PGA wins for best picture last weekend, picked up the original screenplay prize for Sean Baker. “Nickel Boys,” which has two Oscar noms, won the WGA award for RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes.

“Shōgun” was the night’s big winner, picking up prizes for best drama, best new series and best drama episode. On the comedy side, “Hacks” also scored a double play, landing best comedy and best comedy episode. In the limited field, “The Penguin” scored the series win.

Meanwhile, it was the first WGA noms and wins for Baker, Ross and Barnes.

At the controversial intersection of graphic violence in pop culture and women’s liberation in politics, you’ll find the taboo and too often overlooked subgenre of feminist body horror. In 2025, Coralie Fargeat, Demi Moore, and Margaret Qualley are changing all that with “The Substance”: a triumphant all-timer that was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.

These extreme female-centric movies wield over-the-top gore and violence like exacting scalpels, peeling away society’s thick skin of deference and niceties to reveal an insidious underbelly of gendered violence, gendered shame, gendered betrayal, gendered hell. You’ll see flourishes of those themes in all kinds of movies, including last year’s “The First Omen” and “Alien: Romulus.” But movies like “The Substance” and Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch” — starring Amy Adams as a young mom who shape-shifts into a dog — make a meal of them for their movie’s entire duration.

Quick LinksWhat Is Nightbitch About?How Nightbitch Does Wolf Man's Big Theme Better

The following contains spoilers for Wolf Man and Nightbitch, now playing in theaters.

In the 2020s, creature features and monster shows are back in full swing. Hollywood has been churning out vampire properties such as Robert Eggers' Nosterfatu and TV series like Interview with the Vampire. However, werewolves are getting a fair crack at the whip, with Eggers even making a werewolf movie soon.

The Underworld franchise has also used werewolves, as has shows like Wolf Like Me. Of course, fans always gravitate to the Universal Pictures classic: The Wolf Man. The movie has been updated once more with Leigh Whannell's Wolf Man, which focuses more on the cerebral aspect of becoming a beast than the actual feral rampage. Interestingly, for fans who do like what Whannell has done in his remake, there is one psychological...

It’s hard to imagine an occasion that would make Sara Bareilles nervous, considering that the Grammy Award winner is a veteran of stages far and wide. But Friday night’s Celebrating Sundance Institute fundraiser at Park City’s Grand Hyatt Deer Valley proved to be such an event.

Upon taking her place in the ballroom lights to close out the starry event, Bareilles admitted that it was the “fancy room” that sent her nerves into overdrive. The fundraiser saw a long list of honorees and presenters take the stage including A Complete Unknown filmmaker James Mangold, Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter, Glenn Close, Joel Edgerton, Marielle Heller, R.J. Cutler and Tessa Thompson. Guests making the rounds included Jon Hamm, Boots Riley, Kimberly Peirce, Roger Ross Williams and more.

Or maybe it was because the film that brought her to Sundance this year means so much to her.

James Mangold misses the era when movies weren’t embarrassed to make audiences feel something. The director of the Bob Dylan musical biopic “A Complete Unknown” and comic book adaptation “Logan” believes there’s a growing hostility to films that wear “their hearts on their sleeve.”

“Most of my generation, my peers, have been generally fascinated by irony or detachment. I never felt completely at home in that idiom because I felt those [films] were cool and clever, but not necessarily moving,” the newly minted Oscar nominee said at Sundance’s annual gala on Friday night, where he was feted with the second-ever Trailblazer Award (the first was bestowed to Christoper Nolan in 2024). “Movies that put their feelings on the line, the way we talk about them and use words like melodramatic or chewing the scenery or too much, we kill some of the fearlessness [of directors].”

Mangold expressed his excitement in returning to Sundance,...

Like so many great stories, Michelle Satter’s Sundance backstory started with a phone call and ended with the boldest of propositions.

More than 40 years ago, Satter, a recent college graduate who had just co-founded a performing arts organization in Boston, answered a call and a question from a close friend that would forever change her life. “Would I consider coming to the Sundance Institute in Utah for the first monthlong filmmakers lab that Robert Redford was starting up? How can you say no to that?” Satter recalled from a ballroom stage inside the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley during the Celebrating Sundance Institute gala on Friday. “There was an immediate yes.”

Satter arrived that following summer during which time Redford laid out his vision for the Sundance Institute, blueprints that called for “well-established screenwriters, directors and actors to share their decades of experience with filmmakers early in their careers with...

The star of Sundance’s annual gala in 2025 was not newly-minted Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo, or Oscar winner Olivia Colman, or even Sara Bareilles, who earned a standing ovation for a brief performance to close out the evening. Instead it was Michelle Satter, whose name the general public may not know but was beloved in the room at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley in Park City.

Satter is the Founding Senior Director of Artist Programs for the Sundance Institute. She has been with the non-profit since quite literally the very beginning. In her speech at the honorees dinner, Satter recalled getting five minutes of Robert Redford’s time and working up the courage to tell him that he needed her to open a Los Angeles office for the Sundance Institute.

His response? “Sure. Call me when you get there.” The rest is history.

Satter launched the Filmmakers Lab for the...

The Sundance Film Festival chose well in selecting the honorees for tonight’s Gala fundraiser at the newly opened Grand Hyatt Deer Valley.

Beyond freshly minted Oscar nominees Cynthia Erivo and James Mangold in the house to receive the Visionary Award and Trailblazer Award respectively, it was Michelle Satter — the Founding Senior Director of Artists Program for the Sundance Institute — whose stirring speech unified the high-profile packed ballroom.

Satter was recognized for her decades-long commitment to nurturing artists and cultivating independent film through the Sundance Labs. As many in the room knew and as Satter mentioned, she and her husband David Latt were among the thousands who lost their homes in the wildfires that scorched LA. Horribly, this tragedy came after Satter and Latt’s youngest son Michael, an advocate in the industry for social justice, was fatally shot in November 2023 at his Miracle Mile home in a senseless murder.

Most folks seek escapism when going to the movies, while others get off on seeing other people’s anxiety, drawing either catharsis or comedy from the idea that someone else has it worse. Sporting a poisoned-fortune-cookie title like “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” there can be little question as to which category best describes Mary Bronstein’s stress-fueled second feature. With her husband away and her daughter hooked up to a constantly beeping medical device, exasperated Linda (Rose Byrne) may be going out of her mind, but Bronstein puts us squarely inside it, as the walls close in, the ceiling collapses and the floor buckles beneath her.

An A24 release forged in much the same mold as “Good Time” or “Uncut Gems” (which Bronstein’s partner Ronnie co-wrote), the Safdie-esque — but refreshingly female-centered — indie movie could be “Mommy No-Legs” to those guys’ crazy-making “Daddy Longlegs”: a...

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. will host the 77th Annual Writers Guild Awards’ East Coast segment, at New York’s Edison Ballroom on Saturday, Feb. 15, the org announced Thursday.

Wood is currently the host of CNN’s satire news program “Have I Got News for You” and previously starred in the WGA Award-nominated series “Command Z.” “It’s an honor to return to host this celebration of the people who truly are the red blood cells of this industry,” said Wood in a statement. “We will plan a wonderful evening and eagerly await notes from the studio executives.”

Presenters at the 2025 Writers Guild Awards ceremony in New York include Jesse Eisenberg, Rosie Perez, Michael McKean, Cory Michael Smith, DeWanda Wise, Ronny Chieng, Adriana Diaz, Meredith Scardino, Cole Escola, Bridget Moynahan, Anette O’Toole and Michael Zegen.

The Writers Guild Awards honor “outstanding writing in film, television, new media, news, radio and promotional categories.

This article contains mention of sexual assault.

There are plenty of exciting young voices on the independent film scene. From Sean Baker breaking through to the mainstream this past year with Anora to Barry Jenkins shedding his indie roots and trying his hand at the live-action sequel to The Lion King (2019), Mufasa: The Lion King. Filmmakers waver in and out of the independent sphere as they get their breakthrough film, but those with humble beginnings mostly tend to make their grand return back home. Some directors, however, leave the grit and grind of the indies by the wayside and set their sights higher and higher as zeros get added to their paycheck, and it's perfectly understandable why one would do that. It's important not to forget these filmmakers' earliest efforts because if audiences forget them, then the filmmakers will as well. One exciting voice, in particular, has managed to keep...

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. will host the 77th Annual Writers Guild Awards in New York next month. WGA nominations were announced yesterday after being postponed amid LA wildfires.

The awards are still set to unspool in concurrent ceremonies on both coasts — the Edison Ballroom in New York and the Beverly Hilton in LA — on Feb. 15.

NYC presenters include Ronny Chieng, Adriana Diaz (CBS Mornings), Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain), Cole Escola, Bridget Moynahan (Blue Bloods), Michael McKean (The Diplomat), Annette O’Toole Rosie Perez (The Flight Attendant), Meredith Scardino (Girls5eva), Cory Michael Smith (Saturday Night Live), DeWanda Wise and Michael Zegen.

Wood is currently host of CNN satire Have I Got News For You. He wrote and starred in the Writers Guild Award-nominated series Command Z, produced...

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has unveiled its nominees for the 2025 WGA Awards, highlighting a mix of familiar Oscar frontrunners, unexpected entries, and the creative reshuffling prompted by ineligible contenders.

Sean Baker’s critically acclaimed “Anora” is leading the original screenplay list, which many consider the Oscar frontrunner in this category. Another strong contender is Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain,” a personal, semi-autobiographical drama that has been a critical favorite this season.

The inclusion of Justin Kuritzkes’ “Challengers” — a romantic sports drama starring Zendaya — is significant. After its high-profile shutout at the BAFTA Awards, this nomination could rejuvenate its awards season momentum. Adding variety to the category is Alex Garland’s bold post-apocalyptic thriller, “Civil War,” and Megan Park’s sweet yet irreverent comedy, “My Old Ass.” Park, who won praise for her directorial debut “The Fallout,” is also a DGA nominee for first-time director.

The adapted screenplay...

In 2024, Amy Adams appeared in the movie Nightbitch, and although the critical ratings are somewhat divisive, there's a chance that this film could win Adams her very first Oscar. Based on a novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch follows an unnamed protagonist simply known as Mother. After abandoning her art career to care for her toddler, Mother begins to feel restricted, and as a result, starts to notice strange changes in her body. More specifically, Mother starts to believe that she and other mothers are turning into dogs.

Adams has enjoyed an outstanding career over the course of several decades, and arguably, her somewhat odd role in Nightbitch is not a huge surprise. Adams has proven her incredible versatility, from portraying a naive Disney princess in Enchanted to a conniving liar in American Hustle. Adams is not afraid to act in unique worlds or take on heavy characters.

Exclusive: Bond Group Entertainment, Linden Productions, 51 Entertainment and Seaview have acquired rights to Eliza Kennedy’s Lucky Night ahead of its anticipated March 25, 2025 sale date from Crown Publishing Group. Kennedy will adopt the novel as an original play.

Lucky Night is centered on Nick Holloway and Jenny Parrish, who will finally spend their first night together after maintaining an ongoing six-year affair. Expectations are running high for this brief reprieve from ordinary life, where they both need a good bout of ravishing sex and witty conversation. But of course, that’s not what they get. As they barely get settled in a new luxury Manhattan hotel, a smoke alarm goes off. The reality of their situation becomes apparent, and all their secrets, evasions and regrets come spilling out. Stripped of their defenses, Nick and Jenny are forced to be honest — with each other and themselves— about what they want,...

In the dark comedy Nightbitch, the main character is simply known as Mother, and though this distinction may seem innocuous, it actually hints at a much larger truth about the character. Based on a novel by Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch follows Mother, a woman who is the mom of a toddler, and as a result, feels as though her old self is slipping away. When Mother discovers that some strange changes are occurring to her body, she decides to embrace her new dog-like features in order to regain her sense of identity.

Nightbitch may have gone under the radar for many audiences in 2024, but it is a unique story that may speak to a number of viewers, especially women and mothers. In particular, Amy Adams' performance as Mother is raw, vulnerable, and refreshingly messy. Truthfully, this is the entire goal of the movie. Through subtle details and fantastical oddities, the movie...

The Disney+ chart is being dominated by R-rated movies. The streaming service, which launched in late 2019, contains content owned and produced by Disney and its various brands, including 20th Century Studios, Marvel Studios, Pixar, National Geographic, and Lucasfilm. However, when it initially debuted, no R-rated content was available on the platform. This policy eventually changed due to a variety of factors, including the streamer's acquisition of the Marvel series that were originally developed for Netflix, including Daredevil and The Punisher.

The presence of these shows caused Disney+ to launch a system of parental controls that separated children's profiles from adult profiles, limiting their library on the former. While recent Disney+ original shows and movies, which include the show Star Wars: Skeleton Crew and the musical Descendants: The Rise of Red are still focused on the family audience, adult profiles have access to a broader variety of material, including R-rated and...

Amy Adams' new horror-comedy with a 59% Rotten Tomatoes score has become a streaming success. After beginning her career in Hollywood with small roles in films and television shows, Adams' breakthrough came with her performance in 2005's Junebug, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. However, it was her portrayal of the spirited Giselle in Disney's Enchanted that showcased her versatility and charm, cementing her status as a leading lady.

With her ability to embody a wide range of characters, Adams continued to garner critical acclaim with her nuanced performances in films like Doubt, The Fighter, The Master, American Hustle, and Vice – all of which earned her additional Oscar nods. Adams continued to solidify her reputation with a mix of blockbuster and dramatic roles, including her portrayal of Lois Lane in the Dceu movies. In turn, Adams is one of the most acclaimed and accomplished actresses working today,...

How animalistic, grotesque, and feral in nature is the intersection of motherhood and womanhood? This very question is at the core of Marielle Heller's 2024 feminist satire body horror film Nightbitch, which is based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder. While the horror elements are fairly minimal, the surreal nightmare that is mundane domesticity is apparent as Oscar nominee Amy Adams' protagonist, only known as "Mother," navigates stay-at-home motherhood with her two-year-old son. As she processes her frustration with longstanding patriarchal systems, her husband's frequent business trips, and her willingness to abandon a thriving art career, Mother begins noticing some physical changes of the canine variety. In short, Nightbitch is about a mom who believes she's turning into a dog.

Though initial trailers for Nightbitch weren't received well — as some found it jarring to witness Adams barking and digging holes in the front yard — the beloved...

Sometimes movies will find a bigger life following their theatrical release because audiences may not have taken the time to check it out in theaters or other films take priority. Released on Dec. 6, Nightbitch seemed poised to be a potential awards contender for its star, Amy Adams, but after the surreal horror comedy received mixed reviews from critics, interest in the film seemed to subside, and it came and went quickly from most theaters. After a surprisingly short amount of time, Nightbitch was added to Hulu, and now its fortunes are changing — the film has become a streaming hit on the platform.

According to Hulu's latest Top 10, Nightbitch sits at number two, quickly ascending the chart following being released on Dec. 27. It's fitting that the film is performing well on the platform because it was originally intended to go direct to Hulu, but pivoted to a theatrical release courtesy of...

Motherhood and childbirth are often associated with gentleness and warmth. That’s because we see sanitized versions of these experiences in the popular media. These one-sided portrayals can alienate people who do not share those sentiments. They can make them feel guilty or ashamed for not being the beacon of kindness. A few recent projects have tried to break the stereotypes with chilling reality.

Shows like “Dead Ringers” and “This Is Going to Hurt” and movies like “The Lost Daughter” challenged these notions through their unfiltered perspective on these complicated experiences. “Nightbitch” (2024) is the latest addition to this list. Written and directed by Marielle Heller, it takes a black comedic approach to make a point about the pains of post-partum experience and motherhood. It stars Amy Adams as an unnamed mother, who starts feeling like she is turning into a dog.

Spoilers ahead.

Nightbitch (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

“Nightbitch” follows...

Gold Derby rounds up today’s top stories in entertainment for Dec. 27, 2024.

Update:

Nightbitch comes barking to Hulu

On Dec. 27, Amy Adams‘ latest awards contender became available to stream for free for Hulu subscribers. Based on the 2021 Nightbitch novel by Rachel Yoder, the big budget film version from writer/director Marielle Heller stars Adams as a stay-at-home mother who starts inexplicably transforming into a dog. Other cast members include Scoot McNairy as her husband, Arleigh Patrick Snowden & Emmett James Snowden as their son, and Zoë Chao as a family friend.

Searchlight Pictures’ horror-comedy has been racking up various awards nominations this season, including for Adams at the Golden Globes and Independent Spirit Awards. Oscars next? As Heller recently told Gold Derby, “[Adams] is so wonderful and she’s so vulnerable, and I feel like she really trusted me.” Watch the video interview below:

Tim Allen spills secrets about Toy Story 5...

“Nightbitch” is a very compelling dark comedy about the challenges that are inherent to child-rearing, but it is unfortunately saddled with a ridiculous metaphor at its center that drags the pacing to a halt. There may have been a way to spin “Nighbitch” into a more absurdist romp that embraced visceral horror, and it also may have succeeded had it leaned entirely into the drama with an approach that felt more authentic. Unfortunately, “Nighbitch” feels lost somewhere in the middle, leading to a rather unpleasant slog that lacks cohesiveness. While it would be hard to fault the ambition behind its concept, “Nighbitch” is not nearly as shocking, devastating, or funny as it is clearly aiming to be.

Based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder, “Nighbitch” centers on an unnamed mother (Amy Adams) who finds it harder to raise her son (played by twin child actors Arleigh...

Let’s get this out of the way right at the top: Nightbitch is not a film about Amy Adams turning into a dog. Well, she does, in fact, turn into a dog some nights, in the latest film from Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood writer-director Marielle Heller, and her evolution does involve growing hair in strange places, a newly discovered keen sense of smell, and running in packs with other dogs. But, unlike that odd first trailer that left the internet divided seemed to imply, Nightbitch isn’t about a six-time Oscar nominee becoming a dog. Instead, Nightbitch is about the powerful and transformative nature of motherhood and the desire to not lose one’s self after starting a family, shown through one of the wildest, most ambitious performances by Adams, who yes, sometimes turns into a dog.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Between the Temples (Nathan Silver)

In a state of arrested development after his wife unexpectedly died from a freak accident, Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is suicidal, pleading to a truck to just run him over and begging that he be fired from his job as cantor at the local Jewish temple in upstate New York. While this set-up may not scream comedy, Between the Temples is in fact hilarious, packed with endless jokes and adoration for physical gags while we witness Ben find new meaning in life through an unexpected acquaintance. Above all, Nathan Silver’s feature, from a script he co-wrote with C. Mason Wells,is a thrillingly alive, nimble piece of filmmaking: shot on 16mm by Sean Price Williams with...

Hollywood Records’ The Big Score series continues to pull back the curtain on the world of film scoring with a new episode about Nightbitch. Based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder, Nightbitch is a dark comedy that tells the story of a stay-at-home mom who finds herself turning into a dog as she faces the pressures and demands of motherhood. The movie stars Amy Adams as Mother and features a cast including Scoot McNairy as Husband, Arleigh and Emmett Snowden as Son, and Zoë Chao as Jen.

ScreenRant is happy to offer a first look at the latest episode of the The Big Score, diving into the musical process of Nightbitch composer Nate Heller. Heller is the brother of Nightbitch director Marielle Heller, and the pair have collaborated on a number of projects in the past, including 2019’s Mr. Rogers biopic A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

From edge-of-seat chases to sexy role-playing, Guardian writers pick their most memorable scenes from films released in the US this year

Spoilers ahead

Amy Adams’s canine transformation in Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch should be nothing we haven’t seen before. There is a fine history of moonlit metamorphoses in werewolf movies: moans that deepen into growls, the stretching and twisting of muscle, fur sprouting at lightning speed. In fact, some people criticised this film for shying away from the body horror at the heart of Mother’s animalistic breakdown. But there is a powerful whiff of catharsis in this low-key transformation scene: watching Adams sniff the midnight air, dig with bare hands into her own tidy suburban lawn, down on her paws, fully dog in body and mind, before the hair begins to bristle on her forearms. Adams’s eerily calm voiceover (“I have one thought: I am an...

Amy Adams gives one of the best performances of her career in Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, which is set to make its debut on Hulu just after Christmas. In it she plays a new mother who finds herself increasingly alienated from her loving partner (Scoot McNairy) and former as she becomes all consumed by her new parental role, which eventually has her thinking that she might be turning into a dog. While early reports seemed to suggest this was going to be some kind of horror flick, it’s actually a gentle comedy about motherhood and one that will resonate with both mothers and their spouses.

A little while ago, I had the chance to speak to the movie’s director, Marielle Heller. Nightbitch marks her fourth film, following the well-received The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Can You Ever Forgive Me, and the Mister Rogers biopic, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

The news is full of stories about people fighting back at attempted restrictions and limitations to women’s bodies. In Hollywood, the same can be said for some of the films in this year’s awards race.

Director and co-writer Pedro Almodóvar’s brilliantly colored “The Room Next Door” stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton as estranged friends who reconnect when the latter’s character opts for euthanasia instead of slowly and painfully succumbing to cancer. Director-writer Marielle Heller’s metaphoric black comedy-horror “Nightbitch” is an adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel about motherhood, in which a harried yet loving mom (Amy Adams) transforms into a dog as she increasingly loses her own identity while raising her young son.

Writer-director Halina Reijn’s sexy psychological drama “Babygirl,” which stars Nicole Kidman, goes into the power of being the submissive one in a sexual relationship. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s dark comedy “The Substance,...