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A teaser trailer for Ben Wheatley’s ‘Bulk’ has been launched ahead of its Edinburgh Film Festival premiere.

Wheatley’s latest will have its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 14th as the opening night film for the Midnight Madness strand, followed by additional screenings on August 15th. There is also a special preview screening at Pictureville cinema in Bradford on August 16th as part of the Film4 season. Ben Wheatley, producer Andy Starke and some of the cast will attend all the screenings.

When an overzealous scientist pushes his experiments with string theory too far his brane explodes. That’s “brane”, not “brain”- but that means someone has to sort out the mess he has created. Our hero Corey Harlan is sent in, kicking and screaming find the heart of the brane and its creator, Anton Chambers. Now manifested as a normal townhouse hosted...

Two weeks before the Edinburgh International Film Festival kicks off its 78th edition, Festival Director and CEO Paul Ridd seemed almost at ease.

“We’re not in the eye of the storm,” he said, “but we’re sort of circling it.”

Since taking the helm in late 2023, alongside festival producer Emma Boa, Ridd has overseen a strategic reinvention of one of the world’s oldest film festivals from building a new board and footprint to rethinking its mission within Scotland’s festival-heavy cultural calendar.

“This year is really year one,” he told Variety. “Last year we laid the groundwork, we showed that the new structure could work. Now, it’s about growing on that ballast.”

That growth is visible across the board. EIFF25 presents 43 new feature films, 18 of them world premieres, including the 10-title Sean Connery Competition for Feature Filmmaking Excellence — carrying substantial £50,000 prize awarded by audience vote. Alongside that are six retrospective screenings,...

Starpower isn’t a trait that has been associated, in recent years, with Edinburgh’s International Film Festival. The event didn’t sustain any real drop in quality or reach, but has rather been a victim, like other summer festivals, of the tightening grip the fall period has on our industry.

This year, however, festival director Paul Ridd, in his sophomore year at the helm, has compiled, along with his growing team, an intriguing lineup packed with high-profile names from across the industry, many of whom rarely speak or appear publicly.

2025 Eiff visitors include producer Adele Romanski (Moonlight), who will appear alongside filmmaker Eva Victor. The festival will hold the UK premiere of Sorry, Baby, Victor’s debut feature as a director, and the latest film produced by Romanski for Pastel, the company she created with Barry Jenkins and Mark Ceryak. The Sixteen Films team, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, and Rebecca O’Brien,...

Ben Wheatley’s latest film gets a creepy, thoroughly fascinating preview. Here’s the Bulk trailer.

You can always count of Ben Wheatley to serve us something weird and wonderful, but his latest film instructs us to “unexpect the expected”.

A trailer has been released for Wheatley’s new film Bulk and it looks absolutely bonkers, in the best possible way.

Take a look at the Bulk trailer:

In the “randomly chosen shots” we get glimpses of characters played by Sam Riley, Noah Taylor and Alexandra Maria Lara. There’s also something called “The Distortion Zone” and “The Brain Collider”. We haven’t got a clue what these are, but we’re excited to find out.

After pitting a big shark against Jason Statham in Meg 2: The Trench, Bulk marks Wheatley’s return to the style of his earlier work. There’s a little of A Field In England...

Back in 2020, filmmaker Ben Wheatley revealed that he had secretly written and directed a psychological horror film called In the Earth over the course of 15 days that August, in the midst of the pandemic lockdowns. Earlier this year, we learned that Wheatley has managed to make another movie in secret. This one is called Bulk, and it’s set to premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which is set to run from August 14 to 20 this year. Bulk will be the opening screening of the festival’s Midnight Madness strand. With its premiere right around the corner, a trailer for Bulk, consisting of “randomly chosen shots,” has now dropped online. You can watch it in the embed above.

Plot details are being kept under wraps, but the film is said to be “a return to the thrillingly free-spirited filmmaker’s homegrown, kaleidoscopic works like In The Earth and A Field in England.

“The following promotional video has been generated using computer software and consists of randomly chosen shots from the feature film Bulk.” So begins the official trailer for Ben Wheatley’s new movie, which was directed in secret and described by the filmmaker as a true “midnight movie.”

Wheatley previews, “This is a midnight film through and through. Car chases, gun fights, sci-fi, and romance.” Bulk has also been described as “a return to the thrillingly free-spirited filmmaker’s homegrown, kaleidoscopic works like In The Earth and A Field in England.”

Here’s the synopsis, which brings us no closer to understanding what’s going on here….

“When an overzealous scientist pushes his experiments with string theory too far – his brane explodes. Thats “brane,” not “brain” – but that means someone has to sort out the mess he has created. Our hero Corey Harlan is sent in – kicking and screaming – to find...

Ben Wheatley doesn’t sit still. That’s true in a genre sense – this is a filmmaker who’ll hop from harrowing horror, to wry comedy, to glossy period pieces (Rebecca) and thrillers (Free Fire), to gigantic global shark blockbusters (Meg 2: The Trench) from film to film. It’s also true in the sense that Wheatley rarely disappears for long. And since he served up 2023’s Jason Statham-starring megalodon sequel, Wheatley has been hard at work on not one but two new features (as well as last year's TV series Generation Z). For a while, we’ve known about the upcoming Bob Odenkirk-starring Normal. But he’s also been working away on a film titled Bulk – an experimental sci-fi film which looks anything but… well, normal. Watch the trailer exclusively here.

Yes, this looks like Wheatley in mind-exploding A Field In England mode here, a film that...

Actor Jason Statham is no stranger to starring in movies that put his characters into perilous situations. In 2018, Statham led a creature feature that drew comparisons to Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film, Jaws.

The Meg, which dropped on HBO Max in Jul., is now climbing up the streaming charts, according to FlixPatrol. The movie, which also stars Bingbing Li (Transformers: Age of Extinction), Rainn Wilson (The Office), and Ruby Rose (Orange is the New Black), is in the No. 7 spot in HBO’s Top 10 Movies in the U.S. It’s ahead of I Love You Forever, A Minecraft Movie, and Fahrenheit 451 on the platform.

Despite its 47% Rotten Tomatoes critic score and 44% audience score,The Meg was a massive success, earning $529 million against a budget of around $130 million. It also spawned the 2023 sequel Meg 2: The Trench. Statham stars in The Meg as deep-sea diver Jonas Taylor. Jonas is hired...

When Severin offered me a chance to talk about all their summer sale titles I was thrilled. So, check out the video. This really is an amazing group of films, and I was able to dig up some fun trivia on them. I also have some thoughts about what it means to be a physical media collector. First up are the Uhd upgrades of Ben Wheatley’s Kill List (2011), Can Evrenol’s Baskin (2015), Douglas Buck’s Sisters (2006), Penelope Spheeris’ The Boys Next Door (1985), the gonzo nature strikes back film Wild Beasts (1984), the classic Amicus horror anthology Asylum (1972), and Last House on the Left knockoff House on the Edge of the Park (1980). There’s also a trio of sharksploitation releases in Shark...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Severin has announced their annual summer sale and, as someone who has been collecting Severin titles for quite some time now, I can say that this is one of their best and most eclectic summer offerings. There's a little something for every kind of genre fan, with Uhd upgrades of modern classics, a set of Sharksploitation classics, a Uhd upgrade of Asylum (!!), and a sale on previously released titles. Everything kicks off in less than 24 hours and we have all the details directly from Severin Films:

From the Press Release: Severin Films today presents the full details of their 2025 Severin Summer Sale Event, serving up controversy, kung-fu and carnage like no other label in the industry. In one of physical media’s biggest events of the year, Severin delivers multi-disc Worldwide Uhd Premieres of Baskin directed by Can Evrenol, Douglas Buck’s acclaimed remake of Sisters and Ben Wheatley...

Neon has brought on former head of Metrograph Pictures David Laub as SVP of marketing and publicity.

Laub will work closely with Neon’s president of global cinema Ryan Werner, whose own hire was announced during Cannes.

At Metrograph, Laub acquired and released such films as India Donaldson’s Good One,Sandhya Suri’s Cannes selection Santosh, and Venice prize-winner April by Dea Kulumbegashvilli.

His departure raises questions about Metrograph’s status. Metrograph had not responded for a comment at time of writing.

Prior to that he served more than eight years at A24 working in marketing, publicity, acquisitions, and exhibition.

The Catechism Cataclysm‘s Todd Rohal, Kill List‘s Ben Wheatley and scribe Bryan Fuller‘s long-awaited directorial debut are part of the big surprises for this year’s Midnight Madness slate which will be book-ended by some Canuck filmmakers with Matt Johnson opening the section with SXSW preemed Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie and Grace Glowicki‘s Sundance preemed Dead Lover (closing film). Rohal is back with Steve Little and Robert Longstreet for Fuck My Son! and Wheatley lassoed Bob Odenkirk once again to play a temporary sheriff in a pure action movie simply titled Normal. Fuller’s Dust Bunny follows an eight-year-old girl who asks her neighbor for help to kill the monster under her bed who ate her family.…...

Exclusive: Paris-based sales company Alpha Violet has picked up international sales rights to Forastera, by Los Angeles-based Spanish filmmaker Lucía Aleñar Iglesias. The film is set to world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival’s (TIFF) Discovery section.

The film is Lucía Aleñar Iglesias’ first feature, a follow-up to her short film, also called Forastera, selected for Cannes Critics’ Week in 2020. It tells the story of a Cata, a young woman whose family vacation is dramatically disrupted by the violent death of her grandmother, an act to which she is the only witness. As the strange summer unfolds, Cata...

The Toronto International Film Festival announced today the TIFF 2025 selections for the highly regarded Midnight Madness program, its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb the Festival’s devoted and raucous late-night crowd.

The 2025 edition features seven World Premieres and is bookended by two of the year’s most acclaimed midnight comedies. Midnight Madness opens with the Canadian Premiere of Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, based on Johnson’s cult Viceland series and recipient of the Midnighter Audience Award at this year’s SXSW. Horror-comedy Dead Lover closes out the fest’s midnight section.

Also look for Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny, Ben Wheatley’s latest shoot-out feature Normal starring Bob Odenkirk, and a ton of bone-crunching and over-the-top genre benders to round out this year’s midnight slate.

Here’s the TIFF 2025 Midnight Madness lineup:

Dead Lover | Grace Glowicki...

The program for the Toronto International Film Festival continues as Variety has passed along their unveiling of screenings for their Midnight Madness slate. The Midnight Madness line-up is a late-night presentation of more irreverent films that is akin to a modern-day grindhouse. The press release dare you to “bear witness to the very best and most bizarre in contemporary genre and shock cinema. Its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb.” All of the films featured will be making their premieres in some way, whether it be a world premiere, a Canadian premiere or an international premiere. And one of the films featured is the Bob Odenkirk action film Normal.

The movie is written by John Wick and Nobody screenwriter Derek Kolstad, and Ben Wheatley takes up the directing duties with this one. The film finds Odenkirk playing Ulysses, a lawman “who is thrust into...

The Toronto Film Festival has selected the lineup for this year’s Midnight Madness sidebar that includes seven world premieres. The pics, whether they’re slashers, comedies or hard-r action titles, close out each of night of the festival with 11:59 p.m. screenings at the Royal Alexandra Theatre.

Of note is the world premiere of Ben Wheatley’s reunion of the Nobody franchise team of Bob Odenkirk, scribe Derek Kolstad and producer Marc Provissiero for Normal. Movie tells the story of Ulysses (Odenkirk), a substitute sheriff in a small, forgotten town who responds to a bank robbery, only to unknowingly uncover something far more explosive. Wheatley’s Brie Larson action movie Free Fire won the Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award in 2016.

Also world premiering is Dust Bunny, the feature directorial debut of TV showrunner Bryan Fuller. In the horror drama thriller, an 8-year-old girl asks...

Calling all nocturnal movie lovers: The Toronto Film Festival has unveiled its midnight madness slate, a lineup of often disturbing and always raucous works of cinema.

Director Matt Johnson’s gonzo time-travel caper “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” will open the Midnight Madness section while “Dead Lover,” a zany, macabre horror-comedy from Canadian director Grace Glowicki, will be the closing night film.

Midnight Madness concludes each night of TIFF with 11:59 p.m. screenings at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, where the bold and brave gather at very late hours to “bear witness to the very best and most bizarre in contemporary genre and shock cinema,” according to the festival’s official press release. “Its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb.”

This year’s Midnight Madness section will host seven world premieres and one international premiere. Among the world premieres is Ben Wheatley’s “Normal,...

The Toronto International Film Festival has set seven world premieres, one international premiere and two Canadian debuts to screen in its Midnight Madness section.

Among the world premieres are Normal, a crime thriller from UK director Ben Wheatley (winner of the Midnight Madness People’s Choice award in 2016 for Free Fire), with Bob Odenkirk starring, and Dust Bunny, a whimsical horror thriller that marks the feature directing debut of US television showrunner Bryan Fuller and reunites him with the star of his Hannibal series Mads Mikkelsen.

Also making their global debuts are Kenji Tanigaki’s Hong Kong martial arts thriller The Furious,...

Bob Odenkirk, Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver are among the stars who will appear in the creepy and campy films of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section, TIFF organizers announced on Thursday.

The section will consist of 10 films, seven of them world premieres, two Canadian premieres and one international premiere.

The seven world premiere films include Ben Wheatley’s “Normal,” starring Odenkick as a small-town sheriff; and Bryan Fuller’s “Dust Bunny,” with Mikkelsen and Weaver in the story of an 8-year-old girl hunting the monster she says is under her bed. The international premiere will be “Junk World,” an animated film from Japanese filmmaker Takahide Hori.

The section will open and close with the Canadian premieres of films from Canadian directors. Matt Johnson’s “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” which won the midnight madness award at this year’s SXSW Film Festival, will open the program,...

Midnight Madness, it’s almost your time. The Toronto International Film Festival has today announced the lineup of its “signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb the festival’s devoted and raucous late-night crowd.” One of the most beloved aspects of the festival, the annual assortment of tricks and treats is a feast for the genre-devoted and generally curious alike.

Midnight Madness will open with the Canadian premiere of Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.” The film is based on Johnson’s cult “Viceland” series, and is billed as a “hysterical, death-defying time-travel caper.” The section will close with “Dead Lover,” a “zany, macabre horror-comedy from Canadian director Grace Glowicki.” The 2025 edition features seven world premieres and one international premiere.

The section closes out each night of the festival with 11:59 p.m. screenings at the (possibly) haunted Royal Alexandra Theatre,...

Producer and showrunner Bryan Fuller, known for creating Hannibal and American Gods, is bringing his directorial debut, Dust Bunny, to the Toronto Film Festival for a world premiere as part of the Midnight Madness section.

The horror thriller stars Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver, and portrays a young girl asking her neighbor for help killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family. Fuller is headed to Toronto amid the backdrop a 2023 lawsuit brought by fellow Queer for Fear producer Sam Wineman that alleged a hostile workplace environment on set. The next arbitration hearing in the case is scheduled for Feb. 2026.

The 2025 edition of the nocturnal Midnight Madness sidebar, with seven world premieres, will open with Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, which bowed at SXSW, and will close with Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover, a horror comedy about a lonely gravedigger...

The full Edinburgh Film Festival industry lineup was announced this afternoon, with high-profile visitors including filmmakers Rose Garnett and Eva Victor alongside producer Adele Romanski (Moonlight).

Edinburgh’s industry events will run from 15 August to 20 August at the Festival Hub at Tollcross Central Hall.

The festival’s In Conversation session will begin on August 15 with a session featuring Rose Garnett. The next day, Victor and Romanski will chair a masterclass, and it will be followed by an Eiff Networking Brunch delivered in association with Screen Fringe.

The Sixteen Films team, Ken Loach, Paul Laverty, and Rebecca O’Brien, will give a session on 20 August, while filmmaker Kevin Macdonald and his brother, producer Andrew Macdonald, will deliver the Eiff Keynote on 17 August. Scroll down for the full industry lineup.

Discussing this afternoon’s announcement, Paul Ridd, CEO and Festival Director, said he is “absolutely thrilled to welcome so many major Scottish,...

The Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has unveiled the full lineup of its 2025 industry program, assembling a heavyweight slate of prestigious U.K. and international filmmakers, producers and executives — from Andrea Arnold and Nia DaCosta to Jeremy Thomas, David Hinojosa and Ken Loach.

Running throughout the Festival, with a concentrated program over Aug. 15–20 at the Festival Hub (Tollcross Central Hall), the industry strand looks to consolidate Eiff’s expanding ambitions under Festival Director and CEO Paul Ridd, offering a mix of case study panels, networking events, and its flagship Eiff In Conversation sessions.

This year’s edition leans into cross-sector dialogue and talent development while strengthening links between Scotland’s creative ecosystem and global industry players. Unified, the producing banner founded by Amy Jackson and Lauren Dark, curates a dedicated strand within the programme – a series of one-on-one talks with senior decision-makers and creatives.

Guests in the Unified Series include Rose Garnett,...

A24 executive Rose Garnett and Palme d’Or winner Ken Loach are to speak as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival industry programme, which runs from August 15-20.

Garnett, who has previously worked as director of BBC Film and head of creative at Film4, will be speaking as part of the Unified series, a partnership between Eiff and Amy Jackson and Lauren Dark’snascent production company, Unified.

Further execs speaking across the programme will be Eva Yates, director of BBC Film and Farhana Bhula, interim Film4 director.

Filmmakers that will take part in ‘in conversation’ events include Loach alongside his longstanding partners,...

F1: The Movie Worldwide Box Office(Photo Credit –YouTube)

Brad Pitt has entered pole position at the global box office. With Apple’s high-octane racing drama F1, the actor delivers one of the year’s most unexpected commercial triumphs, both for himself and for the tech giant’s streaming-first film strategy. F1 has now crossed the $400 million mark worldwide (per Box Office Mojo), putting it ahead of Jason Statham’s Meg 2: The Trench, which held its own post-pandemic and was one of his highest-grossing films outside the Fast & Furious franchise. The film was fueled partly by Chinese investment and found a strong market in China, despite Hollywood’s shrinking presence there.

Pitt Crew, let’s ride. Experience #F1TheMovie Now Playing only in theaters. Get tickets now. https://t.co/4bJQtoDGnx pic.twitter.com/LQIgM6gySQ

— F1 Movie (@F1Movie) July 18, 2025

Meg 2 Falls Behind as F1 Overtakes...

As Brad Pitt says in F1, "Three laps is a lifetime." The movie is now in the last leg of its theatrical run, and has passed what could be its final global milestone. Everybody involved in the movie would hope that this isn't the case, and that it is eventually able to cross the coveted $500 million mark as well. But it's a crowded marketplace this summer, and a lot of movies are doing rather well. At some point, F1 is going to have to make way for them in theaters. Either way, the movie passed the $400 million mark at the global box office recently, and, in doing so, overtook one of Jason Statham's biggest hits, Meg 2: The Trench.

In fact, Meg 2 is Statham's second-biggest non-Fast and Furious blockbuster, behind only the original The Meg, which grossed over $500 million worldwide. Meg 2almost made $400 million itself, and that, too, after the pandemic.

This year’s edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival will host British filmmaker Ken Loach and his longtime creative collaborators, writer Paul Laverty and producer Rebecca O’Brien.

The trio will discuss the acclaimed films they have created together over the years including Palme d’Or winners The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006) and I, Daniel Blake (2016), on Aug. 20. The group will then introduce a special retrospective screening on 35mm print of the The Wind That Shakes The Barley, starring Cillian Murphy, the fest confirmed.

Eiff’s In Conversation strand also features a range of other major filmmaking talent who will discuss their creative careers to date, including director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void, One to One: John & Yoko) speaking with his brother, producer Andrew Macdonald (Trainspotting, Civil War, 28 Years Later). Kevin Macdonald will also present a screening of The Cranes are Flying...

Kill Listen, a show devoted to the 2011 Ben Wheatley folk horror film Kill List, is the latest addition to the Film Stories Podcast Network.

Have you ever seen Kill List? If not, do rectify that when you can, as Ben Wheatley’s 2011 picture takes you on a dark, blackly comic journey you might never forget.

That is certainly the case for writer and podcaster Caitlyn Downs, who after appearing on the Film Stories Podcast Network series Modern Horror discussing the film (see below), decided the movie warranted a podcast of its own.

Kill Listen was born, which Downs describes: “Kill List is one of those films that I’ve never managed to get out of my head. Even all these years later I keep finding new paths to follow. The political, cultural and social underpinnings of the film only grow more potent with age so I’m excited to get...

Some of the industry’s top cinematographers are getting involved in the current Oasis craze.

With the reunited band’s sellout gigs continuing across the U.K. — currently in the Gallagher brothers’ hometown of Manchester ahead of concerts in London later this month — Variety has learned that several A-list directors of photography have been behind the camera for an upcoming film about the tour.

Announced this year, the as-yet-unnamed feature is being produced by “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight and directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, the duo behind the LCD Soundsystem doc/concert film “Shut Up and Play the Hits.” It’s being produced by Magna Studios, recently launched by former Pulse execs Marissa Clifford and Davud Karbassioun.

Very little else is known about the film, which is being kept under a veil of secrecy, but Variety hears that both Robbie Ryan and Haris Zambarloukos have been shooting segments of the tour.

Neil Marshall’s The Descent has lost none of its effect in 20 years and modern horror films could certainly learn a thing or two from it. More on that below. Spoilers!

The UK has a long history of producing exceptional horror films. Just look at the legacy of Hammer, Ben Wheatley’s early work or 28 Days Later and its belated sequel 28 Years Later. And that’s just scratching the surface; there’s plenty more to scare your socks off in Britain’s horror pantheon.

It doesn’t get much more terrifying than Neil Marshall’s The Descent, however. Released in 2005, it felt refreshingly old school after the recent releases of Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever and James Wan’s Saw and the rising trend of “torture porn”. The Descent was a straightforward thrill ride that left you on the edge of your seat, with great creature design and believable side characters,...

Jason Statham will always be known for playing Deckard Shaw in the Fast & Furious movies, but seven years ago, he starred in another action thriller that’s become a global streaming sensation. Statham stars alongside Rainn Wilson (The Office) and Cliff Curtis (Avatar: The Way of Water) in The Meg, the 2018 sci-fi kaiju thriller following a crew who goes on a rescue mission after the ocean is terrorized by a gargantuan prehistoric shark. The Meg is streaming on HBO Max in America and on Netflix globally, where it’s one of the most popular movies in countries such as France, Guadeloupe, Tunisia, and Yemen. The Meg was poorly received by critics and audiences, earning scores of 47% from critics and 44% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. However, it did gross $529 million at the box office against a $130 million budget, making it a major financial hit.

During a 2018 interview with Empire Magazine to promote the film,...

Brides Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Andrea Arnold, Ben Wheatley and Kevin and Andrew Macdonald are among the eye-catching names who will be in conversation at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival this year.

The in-person events for the festival were announced today along with the full programme for this year, including the contenders for the £50,000 Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, which also has a bespoke bronze bust of the celebrated Scots actor as a prize.

Paul Ridd at the 2025 programme launch Photo: Amber Wilkinson

Announcing the selection, festival director Paul Ridd said that the month’s since last year’s “rebooted” edition “have been about birth or, should I say, rebirth and a shared mood of optimism”.

Following the restructuring of the festival last year – as a result of the collapse of the Centre for the Moving Image, which has also led to Filmhouse having to...

John McPhail’s Scottish family comedyGrow, starring Golda Rosheuvel, Nick Frost and Alan Carr, and Campbell X’s BFI-backed Low Riderare among the 18 world premieres selected for this year’sEdinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff), taking place from August 14-20 in Scotland.

Low Rider is one of 10 films competing for the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, which comes with a £50,000 prize determined by audience vote. The film is a UK-South Africa co-production that follows the adventures of a woman as she flies from London to Cape Town to search for her absent father and stars Emma McDonald and Thishiwe Ziqubu.

The world premiere of a new animated short film directed by Renée Zellweger, called They, six James Bond movies starring the late Sean Connery screened in a special strand, and “In Conversation” events with the likes of Andrew and Kevin Macdonald, Andrea Arnold, Ben Wheatley and Andy Starke, and Nia DaCosta will all be part of this year’s 78th edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Among the movies in the program this year are the likes of Piotr Winiewicz’s About a Hero with Vicky Krieps, which was written by an AI system trained in Werner Herzog’s works, Eddie Marsan and Sam Claflin-starring “brooding, stylish thriller” All the Devils Are Here from Barnaby Roper, Jan-Ole Gerster’s Islands, “a mysterious and Highsmith-esque existential thriller,” Urška Djukic’s debut feature and coming-of-age film Little Trouble Girls, and Elliot Tuttle’s Blue Film, starring Kieron Moore and Reed Birney.

Martin Scorsese has made some of the most famous gangster movies ever, but he doesn’t just watch American crime films. He also has a real love for British gangster stories.

During a talk with director Edgar Wright for the British Film Institute, Scorsese brought up two British films he thinks everyone should see.

He said “There’s a toughness in the British style that doesn’t have any room for compromise.” The movies he mentioned were The Long Good Friday and Down Terrace.

Related: All 7 Martin Scorsese Gangster & Crime Saga Films Ranked from Worst to Best

The Long Good Friday came out in 1980 and stars Bob Hoskins as a London crime boss whose criminal world starts falling apart. He plays a character named Harold Shand, who’s trying to figure out who’s targeting him. The movie is full of tension, violence, and betrayal. Helen Mirren plays his girlfriend,...

Martin Scorsese is known around the world for making some of the most iconic gangster movies ever, but when it comes to films he enjoys, he’s not just looking at American crime stories. In fact, he’s a big fan of British gangster films too.

Most people know Scorsese from hits like Mean Streets and Goodfellas, which brought a raw and personal touch to mafia stories. He has a real gift for exploring the lives and emotions of complex characters, even in long and intense stories.

Goodfellas is over two hours long, but every character feels real and important. That’s part of what makes his work stand out.

Related: Leonardo DiCaprio Attached To Star in Scorsese’s Adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Winning Novel ‘Home’

Scorsese has always had a deep love for the gangster genre. But his interest goes beyond the New York mob. In a...

Horror doesn’t always need jump scares to rattle you—some films creep under your skin with creeping dread and masterful pacing. Slow-burn horror builds tension so gradually that by the end, you’re gripped by unease you didn’t see coming.

We’ve ranked 12 slow-burn horror movies, from chilling to unforgettable, that masterfully ratchet up tension. Here’s why these films will leave you unsettled long after the credits roll.

12. The Invitation (2015) XYZ Films

A man attends a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife, where strange vibes hint at a sinister agenda. Karyn Kusama’s tight direction turns polite conversation into creeping dread.

The slow unraveling of motives keeps us on edge. We’re hooked by its claustrophobic unease.

11. Lake Mungo (2008) Mungo Productions

A mockumentary explores a family’s grief after a teen’s death, uncovering eerie secrets. Joel Anderson’s subtle chills and ghostly clues build a haunting atmosphere.

Exclusive: Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s performance film The Extraordinary Miss Flower has inked distribution deals with Madman for Australia and New Zealand and Non-Stop for Scandinavia and the Baltics.

The news comes fresh off the film’s UK theatrical run via BFI Distribution. Madman is planning an August release and Non-Stop will release the title in its territories in the fall. Additionally, The Festival Agency is helping with festival bookings are curating some screenings and a performance of the project this Autumn in Paris.

The Extraordinary Miss Flower brings to life the remarkable story of Geraldine Flower and the discovery of a suitcase of letters sent to her in the 1960s and 1970s that inspired acclaimed Icelandic singer-songwriter Emilíana Torrini to return to the studio. Described as “part film, part theatre, part fever dream”, the film takes the form of a series of specially designed performances by Torrini...

Oscar winner Gary Oldman will receive a knighthood and Bafta fellow Samantha Morton an OBE in the King’s Birthday Honours list.

Oldman, 67, is honoured for his services to drama. He won the lead actor Academy Award in 2018 for playing Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour and his celebrated roles include Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, and spy master Jackson Lamb in the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses.

The British star broke out in 1986 with his portrayal of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious in Sid And Nancy. He portrayed Dracula for Francis Ford Coppola in the 1992 film of that name,...

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has secured a spectacular closing night for its Midnight Madness strand with the UK premiere of Macon Blair’s audacious remake of The Toxic Avenger. Featuring an all-star cast led by Peter Dinklage, Elijah Wood, Kevin Bacon and Julia Davis, the film will screen on 20 August, bringing the festival’s weekend of genre cinema to a gloriously gory and hilarious close.

Blair’s version revives the 1980s Troma classic about a bullied janitor, Winston Gooze (Dinklage), whose life is upended by a chemical disaster that transforms him into a radioactive crusader. Armed with a mop and an appetite for justice, the newly minted Toxic Avenger takes up arms against corrupt industrialists who threaten his son and the fabric of his community. Alongside Dinklage, the remake features Jacob Tremblay as his son, Taylour Paige as a fearless ally, Bacon as a ruthless corporate magnate, Wood in...

Exclusive: The Edinburgh International Film Festival (14-20 August) has has set Peter Dinklage-starrer The Toxic Avenger as the closing night film of the festival’s Midnight Madness strand.

The screening will mark the UK premiere of Macon Blair’s remake about a downtrodden janitor, Winston Gooze (Game Of Thrones star Dinklage), who is exposed to a catastrophic toxic accident, and is transformed into a new kind of hero: The Toxic Avenger. Toxie must rise from outcast to savior, taking on ruthless corporate overlords and corrupt forces who threaten his son, his friends, and his community.

The Fantastic Fest debut also stars Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood, Julia Davis and Luisa Guerreiro.

Based on the franchise-spawning 1980s movie, pic is written by Macon Blair, Lloyd Kaufman and Joe Ritter, produced by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment, Alex Garcia, and Mary Parent of Legendary Pictures.

Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk and Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) have boarded Jess McLeod’s dark comedy She’s Nonbinary as executive producers.

The film, shot in Vancouver, sees major misgendering when Max, played by McLeod, and their straight, cisgender boyfriend Jake (Alexander Steele Zonjic) face a major identity crisis after Max reveals they are finally off the waitlist for top surgery, or a medical procedure to create a more masculine or feminine appearance.

McLeod had a key role in Odenkirk’s latest feature, the action film Normal, that was directed by Ben Wheatley and shot in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

“This film is really, really good. It’s intriguing and alive, with excellent performances and visual style. After working with Jess, I knew they were an unstoppable creative force, and this film is a salient example of all the stories they have to tell — I wanted to be involved however I could,...

Amazon looked to have pulled the plug on a Tomb Raider TV series – but the adventures of Lara Croft may now be back on.

It seems that the rumours regarding the demise of Amazon’s Tomb Raider series may have been premature. Back in April, the British tabloids put out a story suggesting that the project was dead – and there was some degree of supporting evidence to lend credence to that story.

Jennifer Salke – the head of Amazon Studios – had been shepherding the project through production and was now out of a job. Puck's Matthew Belloni – a regular Hollywood source – claimed that Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the series’ showrunner, still hadn’t delivered any scripts. There was also plenty of speculation that Amazon was looking to end its pricey production deal with Waller-Bridge, given that up until this point, none of her projects have come to fruition in the way the studio had hoped for.

The latest installment in Tom Cruise’s monumental Mission: Impossible franchise, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, is passing an important global box office milestone this weekend. The movie was produced on a reported budget of $400 million, making it one of the most expensive theatrical features ever made. What this also means is that it needs to gross around $800 million worldwide to break even. And now, after two full weeks in theaters worldwide, the movie is halfway there.

Including Friday’s revenue, The Final Reckoning is passing the $400 million milestone at the global box office as we speak. In doing so, the movie has also overtaken J.J. Abrams’Mission: Impossible III, and the Jason Statham action sequel Meg 2: The Trench. Both movies ended their theatrical runs a hair under the $400 million mark. While Mission: Impossible III earned mostly positive reviews and influenced some of the storytelling in The Final Reckoning,...

Dirty Boy, a psychological folk horror rooted in religious extremism and fractured identity, is set to receive its UK premiere at the 33rd Raindance Film Festival on 22 June. Directed by Doug Rao in his feature-length debut, the film has been nominated for four major awards, including Best UK Feature and Best Director of a UK Feature, as well as a Best Performance nomination for Graham McTavish, who plays a central role in the film.

Blending psychological tension with folk horror and cult symbolism, Dirty Boy follows Isaac, a reclusive man raised in an insular religious sect. As ritualistic killings unfold, Isaac comes to suspect he is being framed by those who once controlled him. Schizophrenic and isolated, he must confront the secretive community he escaped from and unearth the full extent of his own fractured identity in order to stop a murder and prove his innocence.

The cast includes Stan Steinbichler,...

Back in 2020, filmmaker Ben Wheatley revealed that he had secretly written and directed a psychological horror film called In the Earth over the course of 15 days that August, in the midst of the pandemic lockdowns. Five years later, Deadline has broken the news that Wheatley has managed to make another movie in secret. This one is called Bulk, and it’s set to premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, which is set to run from August 14 to 20 this year. Bulk will be the opening screening of the festival’s Midnight Madness strand.

Plot details are being kept under wraps, but the film is said to be “a return to the thrillingly free-spirited filmmaker’s homegrown, kaleidoscopic works like In The Earth and A Field in England.” Wheatley provided the following statement: “I’m very excited and proud to be premiering Bulk at Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness.

The 78th edition of the Edinburgh Film Festival is taking place this August and Deadline reports that the fest will premiere a brand new genre movie from director Ben Wheatley.

Wheatley, whose films include Kill List, Free Fire, High Rise, Meg 2: The Trench, and In the Earth, directed the upcoming Bulk in secret, and he’s calling it a true “midnight movie.”

The film is being described as “a return to the thrillingly free-spirited filmmaker’s homegrown, kaleidoscopic works like In The Earth and A Field in England.”

“I’m very excited and proud to be premiering Bulk at Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness,” Wheatley said. “This is a midnight film through and through. Car chases, gun fights, sci-fi, and romance. Thanks to Edinburgh for having us. It’s going to be a wild night.”

“We could not think of a better way for us to launch...

This week on the Film Stories Podcast Network: new avengers, weird cults, film festivals and much more. Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Reel Talk

There might be hope for the Marvel Cinematic Universe yet if Thunderbolts* is anything to go by. Sam Stokes and guests Violet Hammond, Baz and Gemma Greenland unpack the latest comic-book blockbuster…

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If you just can’t get enough of Thunderbolts* on the network, are you in luck? Our Marvel-dedicated show sees hosts Hugh McStay and Ashley Thomas joined by guest Dan Owen to unpick the film in detail…

Writers on Film

The Godfather Pts 1 & 2 and Apocalypse Now stand as among the greats in 1970s cinema, no thanks in part to the editing prowess of Walter Murch, who sits down with John Bleasdale to discuss his new book and career, plus don’t miss John reporting exclusively from the Cannes Film Festival with special episodes…...

The Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced the world premiere of Bulk, the long-rumoured new feature from British director Ben Wheatley, as the launch title for its 2025 Midnight Madness strand.

The film, produced in secret by Andy Starke through Rook Films and financed by Film4, will open the late-night programme when the festival returns from 14 to 20 August. Details on the film remain tightly under wraps, with both the festival and the filmmakers remaining deliberately vague about the plot.

What has been confirmed is that Bulk marks a return to the psychedelic, genre-bending work that first brought Wheatley international acclaim. Titles such as Kill List, Sightseers, and A Field in England established his reputation for unsettling, often experimental storytelling, and Bulk is reportedly in a similar vein, albeit with a twist of genre chaos. In Wheatley’s own words, the film features “car chases, gun fights, sci-fi and romance,” all distilled...

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Fight or Flight is an action comedy film directed by James Madigan from a screenplay co-written by Brooks McLaren and D.J. Cotrona. The 2025 film follows Lucas Reyes, a disavowed Secret Service agent hiding in Bangkok. He is given a chance to get his life back when he is tasked with boarding a plane to San Francisco and capturing a wanted criminal known as “the Ghost,” but he soon finds himself fighting against multiple assassins who are also there to get to the Ghost. Fight or Flight stars Josh Hartnett, Charithra Chandran, Marko Zaror, and Katee Sackhoff. So, if you loved the brutal action, likable actors, and an entertaining story in Fight or Flight, here are some similar movies you should check out next.

Bullet Train Credit – Sony Pictures

Bullet Train is an action comedy film directed by David Leitch...