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Are you prepared for an action-packed week featuring an array of new movies to stream across various Ott platforms? Dive into a weekend of cinematic delights with our handpicked selection of the hottest movie releases. This list is curated with movie recommendations for those of you who only want to watch the best out of the new movies that pop up on streaming. The list may also come in handy for you to stay updated with current releases on subscription-based Ott platforms and help you pick the best based on your taste and appetite.

The Best New Movies To Stream on Max 1. Babygirl (2024)

Where to Stream: Max | Dir: Halina Reijn

Babygirl, directed by Halina Reijn, is an emotionally charged erotic thriller that delves into desire, power, and consent. The story follows Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman), a high-powered New York CEO who seemingly has it all—professional success, a loving family,...

Are you prepared for an action-packed week featuring an array of new movies to stream across various Ott platforms? Dive into a weekend of cinematic delights with our handpicked selection of the hottest movie releases. This list is curated with movie recommendations for those of you who only want to watch the best out of the new movies that pop up on streaming. The list may also come in handy for you to stay updated with current releases on subscription-based Ott platforms and help you pick the best based on your taste and appetite.

The Best New Movies To Stream on Max 1. Babygirl (2024)

Where to Stream: Max | Dir: Halina Reijn

Babygirl, directed by Halina Reijn, is an emotionally charged erotic thriller that delves into desire, power, and consent. The story follows Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman), a high-powered New York CEO who seemingly has it all—professional success, a loving family,...

On May 2nd, Saban Films and Blue Fox will be giving the shark thriller Fear Below a digital, On Demand, and limited theatrical release – and with that release date right around the corner, a trailer for the film has dropped online! You can check it out in the embed above.

Directed by Matthew Holmes, who also wrote the screenplay with Gregory Moss, Fear Below has the following synopsis: When a gang of ruthless criminals loses their stolen gold in a river, they turn to a team of desperate, down-on-their-luck divers to retrieve it. What begins as a high-stakes recovery mission quickly spirals when the divers soon find themselves in the company of a vicious bull shark, but the dangers in the water are only a fraction of the dangers that wait for them above. What helps make this movie stand out among the many shark thrillers we get every year...

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Max is ready with an entertainment-packed March this year. The upcoming month will see the return of some of HBO’s brilliant original satirical comedy-drama series, The Righteous Gemstone, as well as the streaming release of Hugh Grant‘s thrilling horror drama film Heretic. Just like every month, Max is ready to overload you with great content. So, we’re here to tell you about the 5 new movies and TV shows coming to Max in March 2025.

Heretic (March 7) Credit – A24

Heretic is a horror thriller drama film co-written and co-directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. The 2024 film follows Sister Barnes and Sister Paxton, two Mormon missionaries who knock on the door of Mr. Reed to try to convert him. They soon discover that Mr. Reed might be more dangerous than he initially seemed. Heretic stars Hugh Grant,...

The 2025 Screen Actors Guild Awards celebrated the best performances of the year in both movies and television.

Celebs from all around the world gathered for the annual event on Sunday (February 23) at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

Wicked led the nominations this year with five nods and Shogun led the television categories, also with five nominations.

Make sure to see photos of Every celeb on the red carpet at the SAG Awards. You can also take a look at our list of the Best Dressed stars of the night.

Head inside to see the full list of winners…

Scroll down for the full list of winners…

Movie Nominations:

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role

Adrien Brody / László Tóth – “The Brutalist”

TIMOTHÉE Chalamet / Bob Dylan – “A Complete Unknown” – Winner

Daniel Craig / William Lee – “Queer”

Colman Domingo / Divine G – “Sing Sing”

Ralph Fiennes / Lawrence – “Conclave”

Outstanding Performance...

According to THR, Daniel Craig has dropped out of DC Studios’ Sgt. Rock movie. The actor was set to reunite with Queer director Luca Guadagnino on the project, but the search is now on for a replacement. The film has been scripted by Justin Kuritzkes, who worked with Guadagnino on Challengers and Queer.

The report isn’t clear on why Craig exited the project. One source says it came down to scheduling issues with his wife, Rachel Weisz, while others say that Craig wasn’t as enthusiastic about the role after Queer failed to perform as expected at the box office and during awards season. DC Studios is still hoping to start shooting Sgt. Rock this summer in the UK, and one name being considered as a replacement is Jeremy Allen White.

Created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert, Sgt. Rock made his debut in Our Army at War #83 in...

Daniel Craig has exited Sgt. Rock, DC’s World War II-themed superhero film that would have marked a reteam with director Luca Guadagnino on the heels of A24’s Queer, sources have confirmed to Deadline.

Reps for DC Studios couldn’t be reached for comment, and the reasons for the departure aren’t yet clear. We were first to tell you about Craig’s boarding of Sgt. Rock, which has been eyed as Guadagnino’s next film, ahead of an American Psycho reboot for Lionsgate. Justin Kuritzkes, Guadagnino’s collaborator on the recent films Challengers and Queer, penned the script.

Created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Joe Kubert, Sgt. Franklin “Frank” Rock was first introduced in Our Army at War #83 in June 1959. He’s perhaps one of the most iconic war comic book heroes, with his no-nonsense leading of the fictional Easy Company during World War II. Craig is...

Queer is heading to Max!

The love story starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey, which was directed by Luca Guadagnino, was released in theaters on September 4, 2024 and caused quite a buzz during awards season with Daniel receiving a Golden Globe and SAG nomination.

While the movie has been available for purchase or rent for several weeks, it has now been announced when the movie will be available for streaming on Max.

Keep reading to find out more…Queer will be debut on Max on Saturday, March 29 at 8pm Et.

Here’s a synopsis of the movie: “1950. William Lee (Craig), an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton (Starkey), an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible...

Director Luca Guadagnino and star Daniel Craig's film Queer has found a streaming home and release date. Based on William S. Burroughs' 1985 novella of the same name, Queer sees Craig play a fictionalized version of Burroughs where he falls in love with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a much younger man. Queer earned positive reviews and was one of the Top 10 films of 2024 by the National Board of Review. Craig was nominated for multiple awards for his performance, including The Golden Globes, the Critics' Choice Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Four months after its theatrical release, Queer is finally making its way to streaming. A24 confirmed that Queer will make its streaming debut exclusively on Max in the U.S. on Friday, Mar. 28, 2025. The film will debut on the HBO linear network the following day on Saturday, Mar. 29, 2025, at 8:00 p.m. Et. Queer joins a growing library...

Max has set Friday, March 28 for the streaming premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s romantic drama Queer, starring Daniel Craig and Outer Banks breakout Drew Starkey. The film will debut on HBO linear on Saturday, March 29 at at 8 pm Et.

Based on the semi-autobiographical 1985 novel by subversive American writer William S. Burroughs, whose work helped define the Beat Generation, the A24 film is set in 1950s Mexico City, where William Lee (Craig), an American ex-pat in his late 40s, leads a solitary life amidst a small American community. The arrival in town of Eugene Allerton (Starkey), a young student, stirs William into finally establishing a meaningful connection with someone.

Craig received nominations from the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and SAG awards for his performance.

Queer also stars Lesley Manville, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, and Omar Apollo.

Pic is directed by Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes. Produced by Lorenzo Mieli, Guadagnino...

2024 was one of the strongest years for film in recent years. Films like Anora and Conclave took the world by storm. Dune: Part 2 dominated the box office earlier in the year, and Wicked took over at the end. And, for one of the first times in recent history, the Best Picture race truly looks like anybody's game.

However, for every movie that is going to be recognized at the Academy Awards, countless others deserve acclaim but won't get the chance to receive it. Here are the ten best movies of last year that narrowly missed out on being nominated for Best Picture.

Queer Features One of Daniel Craig's Best Performances

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QueerDramaBiographyHistoryRelease DateNovember 27, 2024Runtime135 MinutesCast

Daniel Craig William Lee

Drew Starkey Eugene Allerton

Jason Schwartzman Joe

Lesley Manville Doctor Cotter...

Luca Guadagnino has carved himself into this generation’s controversial yet fascinating director with films that have taken on both horror and erotic elements, characterized with emotional complexity and often surreal imagery. ‘Queer’ (2024) is his second film of last year, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by William S. Burroughs. Described as Guadagnino’s most personal film to date, 'Queer' combines all of the trademarks found in his films and succeeds in creating an experience as beautiful and strange as it is complex in its portrayal of love. Things to do: Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here. Limited Time Offer – Free Subscription to The Hollywood Insider Click here to read more on The Hollywood Insider’s vision, values and mission statement here – Media has the responsibility to better our world – The Hollywood Insider fully focuses on substance and meaningful entertainment,...

Let’s face it. Almost all of Luca Guadagnino’s reputation as an audacious auteur hinges on Call Me By Your Name. Since then, Luca has made an underwhelming tennis triangle The Challengers where I wasn’t sure the men loved the women or each other.

The gay drama Queer features a true blue superstar, Mr. Bond Daniel Craig himself, bonding with the boys.

This is Mexico in the 1950s, and the stench of periodicity and decadence hits you hard as author William Lee (Daniel Craig) cruises the bars, thereby raising the bar for his performing report. It is indeed a brave performance, though not in a look-what-i-can-do way, but in a quietly uninhibited way.

Lee’s initial wooing of the young wiry bi-sexual Eugene Allerton (an impressively languid Drew Starkey) reeks of the musk of debauchery. Yup, this is a world of cruisers and boozards that Luca Guadagnino knows well,...

Nominations for the 2025 SAG Awards were unveiled this morning, after the group’s scheduled in-person announcement was canceled amid the unfolding wildfire tragedy in Los Angeles. See the full list below, followed by a breakdown of noms by film and TV show..

Vying for the marquee film ensemble category are the casts of A Complete Unknown, Anora, Conclave, Emilia Pérez and Wicked.

Up for the lead actor prize are Golden Globe winner Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Daniel Craig (Queer), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave).

The lead female actor race is among Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl), Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Mikey Madison (Anora) and Golden Globe winner Demi Moore (The Substance).

Overall, Wicked leads the film field with five nominations, followed by A Complete Unknown with four and Anora and Emilia Pérez with three each.

Related: Golden Globes...

The 2025 SAG Awards nominations have been revealed.

Wicked leads this year’s film nominations with five nods, followed by A Complete Unknown with four nods, and Emilia Pérez and Anora with three nominations each.

All four films are nominated for the SAG Awards’ top prize of best cast, along with Conclave, which landed two nominations, as did The Last Showgirl.

Wicked‘s other nominations are for best actress (Cynthia Erivo), best supporting actress (Ariana Grande), best supporting actor (Jonathan Bailey) and stunt ensemble.

A Complete Unknown star Timothée Chalamet is up for best actor for his portrayal of Bob Dylan, with Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro landing supporting actor and actress nominations for their roles as Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, respectively.

In addition to best cast, Emilia Pérez is up for best actress (Karla Sofía Gascón) and supporting actress (Zoe Saldaña), coming on the heels of Saldaña’s best supporting actress Golden Globes win.

Chameleon actor Sebastian Stan was featured in two very different roles in 2024 that each earned him acting nods at the Golden Globe Awards. Though he came up short for one of them, Stan managed to get the win for the other.

At the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday evening, Stan won the award for his performance in A Different Man for the award for Best Performance in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. He overcame fellow nominees Jesse Eisenberg as David Kaplan in A Real Pain; Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed in Heretic; Gabriel Labelle as Lorne Michaels in Saturday Night; Jesse Plemons as Robert, Daniel, and Andrew in Kinds of Kindness; and Glen Powell as Gary Johnson in Hit Man.

Best male actor in a motion picture (musical or comedy) at the #GoldenGlobes goes to Sebastian Stan for A Different Man. pic.twitter.com/SGAcufX7iV— Cbr (@Cbr...

Luca Guadagnino's Queer is already garnering awards buzz for its beautiful interpretation of the 1985 William S. Burroughs novel of the same name. Starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey in its leading roles, and with a supporting cast that includes Jason Schwartzman and Lesley Manville, the film follows William Lee (Craig) as he falls in love with Eugene Allerton (Starkey) in 1950s Mexico City, and the two embark on a trip together through South America in search of the psychedelic drug ayahuasca. But the novel itself is shrouded in mystery, as Burroughs left it unfinished and published it over 30 years after writing it. Queer is far from the first time Guadagnino has adapted a novel to the screen, but he had the extra challenge of both honoring the unfinished source material and constructing his own ending to the story. So, what exactly did Guadagnino change from the Burroughs novel?...

Daniel Craig has garnered praise for his mesmerizing performance as William Lee in Luca Guadagnino's Queer, most recently earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. However, his co-star Drew Starkey shines too in a totally different way in this adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novel of the same name. The character of Eugene Allerton is a major departure from Starkey's recurring role as Rafe Cameron in Outer Banks and film appearances in Love, Simon and The Hate U Give, and Starkey's performance shows impressive restraint and emotional layering.

“Telepathy.” William Lee, protagonist of Luca Guadagnino’s new movie, Queer, doesn’t seek love, fame or wealth. He seeks telepathy, or so he says. That alone would set Queer apart from countless other movies. The surrealistic storytelling of William S. Burroughs — who wrote the novella upon which this film is based — coupled with Guadagnino’s penchant for sexy storytelling, makes Queer so distinct, certainly among the movies of 2024. Viewers will have a hard time finding anything like it in the cinema this year.

Queer will also leave viewers puzzled, talkative and torn between tender feelings and depression. The movie challenges its audience in unusual ways, but for those who can stomach the mix of romance, body horror and outright weirdness, it offers a refreshing, if weird, experience. Queer will, no doubt, give birth to a cult of fans of its strangeness, who are then destined to spend day and night debating its deeper meanings.

Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts behind awards season’s buzziest movies continues with Queer, the ambitious adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ never-completed novel. The A24 drama starring Daniel Craig reteams the Challengers duo of writer Justin Kuritzkes and director Luca Guadagnino.

Queer had its world premiere in August at the Venice Film Festival, screened at major festival galas including at TIFF and New York and had a limited release over Thanksgiving weekend, gaining steam in its expansion ever since. It’s also become an awards magnet for Craig, who was named Best Actor by the National Board of Review and scored Golden Globes and Critics Choice noms.

Queer has been a passion project for Guadagnino, who first read the novel (it was eventually published in 1985) as a teen in Palermo and began writing a script for it at age 21; he says he still has the first...

Luca Guadagnino has had a banner year, releasing two very different but equally excellent films in 2024: the sexually charged tennis drama Challengers in April, and the William S. Burroughs adaptation Queer in late November. As the director explains, the latter features a scene that was inspired by a terrifying moment he witnessed as a child.

Queer is a sensitive and often heartbreaking look into the life of lonely expatriate William Lee (Daniel Craig), who lives in Mexico City and is just as addicted to heroin as he is to the affections of another, much younger American man, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Queer has received rave reviews from critics, with many praising Craig's daring and heartfelt performance, which earned him a 2025 Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama.

Queer features numerous surreal images, perhaps none more haunting than the shot of Lee coughing up...

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Queer!Queer writer Justin Kuritzkes has offered a key clue to understanding the movie's centipede symbol, which appears at a crucial point in the film. The positive reviews for Queer highlight the movie's strong focus on characters, especially expat William Lee (Daniel Craig) and the GI he falls for, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). The movie is also laced with symbolism that is never directly explained, including the ever-present centipede. The arthropod appears prominently in work by the book's author, William S. Burroughs, due to his fear of them, and is also symbolic of change in some parts of the LGBTQ+ community.

Speaking with ScreenRant, Kuritzkes offered some clues about Queer's centipede symbolism, explaining how, while up to viewer interpretation, director Luca Guadagnino thought it important to include due to its prevalence in Burroughs' novels. The writer also explained how, despite being called centipedes, very rarely do they have exactly 100 legs.

This article discusses plot details from Queer.

Luca Gradagnino's Queer is full of uncanny, surreal, and at times, downright grotesque imagery. Perhaps the film's most stirring scene comes in its final act, when William Lee (Daniel Craig) and the object of his affection, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), go on an ayahuasca trip together.

Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com appears on “The Morning Mess” with Dan Baker for Wbgr-fm on December 12th, reviewing “Queer,” an adaptation of a William S. Burroughs novel via director Luca Guadagnino (“Challengers”). In wide release since December 13th.

Former James Bond Daniel Craig is William Lee, a trying-to-recover junkie who is hiding out in 1950s Mexico City after being run out of New Orleans. His lustful ways emerge while traipsing through the bar scene, and he becomes obsessed with an American Navy veteran named Allerton (Drew Starkey). Their relationship is damaged by Lee’s obsession, but things are about to change when they take a side trip to South America, to participate in a aya-hausca ritual, the psychoactive tea that provides mind altering hallucinatory trips. They’re not queer, they are disembodied.

”Queer” is in theaters since December 13h. Featuring Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Colin Bates and Andra Ursula.

Awards kudos, critics’ lists, varied nominations and wins are boosting indie film standouts this weekend. The market is crowded as indies vie with each other, studio tentpoles and fare from Pusha: The Rule – Part 2 and the remastered Daft Punk & Leiji Matsumoto: Interstella 5555. But many specialty distributors are more upbeat now than at any point this year.

The Last Showgirl from Roadside Attractions debuted at $50.3k on one screen. It’s a one-week Academy-qualifying run for the contender by Gia Coppola and starring Pamela Anderson, now a Golden Globe nominee. Both showed up for Q&As at LA’s AMC Century City, helping push the story of a fading Vegas showgirl to the fifth best per-screen opening of the year.

The three-day number also marks Roadside’s second-highest opening PSA in its 20-year history. The distributor said the run featured sellout screenings on both Friday and Saturday across select...

The Call Me by Your Name director’s overlong William Burroughs adaptation boasts some fine performances, but any gritty realism feels totally manicured

The writing of William Burroughs is not for everyone. But even his detractors would agree that he was not in the business of prettification. His loosely autobiographical satires – Junkie, for example, or the novella Queer, which forms the basis for this film – embrace the brutish ugliness of base and animalistic urges. His was a defiantly unsavoury writing voice – prose that was rotten with self-loathing and reeking of stale beer sweat. Whatever else, it came from a place of unvarnished personal truth and authenticity. All of which makes the incongruous approach of Italian director Luca Guadagnino (Suspiria; Call Me by Your Name) to this sprawling adaptation of Burroughs’s self-lacerating 1985 story of obsession, addiction and burnout such a tonally jarring misfire.

Admittedly, the film talks the talk, with...

To fully depict its tragic romance, Queer extends far beyond the original novella. Inspired by William S. Burroughs's novella, the movie follows Daniel Craig as William Lee, an American in Mexico City who falls in love with a discharged Navy sailor (Drew Starkey as Eugene Allerton). The movie was directed by Luca Guadagnino (Challengers) and was released on December 13. Though it largely restrained itself to the original text, Queer abandons the novella to showcase Burrough's real-world fate in its finale.

In an interview with Screen Rant's Bella Garcia, writer Justin Kuritzkes reflects on why he and Guadagnino decided to extend beyond the borders of the book. Knowing that the book is "unfinished", they elected to consider the appendices and essays at the end, given that even Burroughs added more to Queer before its long-delayed publication. Check out his full explanation below:

It was really important, not just to me but to Luca too,...

Queer writer Justin Kuritzkes has offered insight into the complex relationship between William Lee and Eugene Allerton in Luca Guadagnino’s latest film. The A24 historical drama, adapted from William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novella, explores the turbulent emotions of Lee, a disillusioned American expat in 1950s Mexico City, as he becomes infatuated with the enigmatic Allerton. Starring Daniel Craig as Lee and Drew Starkey as Allerton, Queer charts their fraught relationship while immersed in the seedy yet vibrant world of post-war Mexico.

In an interview with Screen Rant, Kuritzkes discusses his perspective on the somewhat unstable dynamic between Lee and Allerton, emphasizing the mutual, albeit "unsynchronized," nature of their connection. Queer marks the second collaboration between Guadagnino and Kuritzkes after the complicated love story of Challengers, which dealt similarly with this intersection of romance and control. Speaking to the challenges of adapting Burroughs’ confessional work, Kuritzkes' shares his approach to writing...

Warning: Spoilers for the ending of Queer!

Queer is yet another success story for filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, who has been hailed as one of the greatest cinematic visionaries in recent decades. While filming his box office hit Challengers, the director teamed up once more with writer Justin Kuritzkes for an arguably more ambitious task: adapting a William S. Burroughs novel. Daniel Craig stars as William Lee (often considered a stand-in for the author), who lives in Mexico City as an expat and experiences a life-changing love for the younger Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey).

Though the movie is populated by several LGBTQ+ characters, the oppressive time period remains a factor standing in the way of their romance. Another problem Lee must deal with is that his straightforward expression of affection is often met with ambiguous responses on Allerton's side. While their passion is undeniable, their communication is often in doubt, which...

In their feverish film, Craig plays a man embroiled in a drug-fuelled gay affair. He and director Guadagnino talk about love, ageing – and a forgotten sex act

There is no shortage of directors who have made movies about gay life only to then backtrack and claim they were not specifically gay stories after all: Tom Ford did it with A Single Man, William Friedkin with both Cruising and The Boys in the Band. Luca Guadagnino, the director of Call Me By Your Name and this year’s steamy tennis romcom Challengers, is not about to play that game. “It is the most gigantic gay film in history,” he says of his latest picture, for which he recreated 1950s Mexico City on 12 stages at the Cinecittà studios in Rome. “I don’t think there has ever been a bigger gay movie.” Then again, he doesn’t have much wriggle room: the film is called Queer.

Daniel Craig attended a UK gala screening and Q&a for his new movie Queer!

The event was held on Tuesday night (December 10) at Curzon Mayfair in London, England.

Some stars were in attendance at the event, including Cate Blanchett, Bridgerton‘s Nicola Coughlan, and director Luca Guadagnino, along with production designer Stefano Baisi and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes.

Here’s a synopsis of the film: 1950. William Lee (Craig), an American expat in Mexico City, spends his days almost entirely alone, except for a few contacts with other members of the small American community. His encounter with Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), an expat former soldier, new to the city, shows him, for the first time, that it might be finally possible to establish an intimate connection with somebody. Watch the trailer!

Fyi: Daniel is wearing Giorgio Armani. Cate is wearing Ashish.

Daniel Craig celebrated his third Golden Globes nomination last night by going to work, taking the stage at London’s Southbank for an extended Q&a with critic Mark Kermode. The occasion was to publicize the release of Luca Guadagnino’s extraordinary film Queer, an adaptation of Beat writer William S. Burroughs’ early memoir set in the gay subculture of 1950s Mexico City. Craig plays William Lee, a pseudonym Burroughs used to protect his parents from the then-scandalous aspects of his writing (homosexuality and hard drugs), but Guadagnino’s adaptation infuses the writer’s lean, skeletal prose with a romantic yearning that always existed in Burroughs’ heart if not on his pages.

“The original story is not told with that much lyricism,” said Craig. “That’s down to Luca. We decided very early on to get under this character’s skin and find out what he was about — the yearning,...

For an entire generation, Daniel Craig is synonymous with the role of the iconic super spy James Bond. Craig wrapped up his run with the character in 2021 to plenty of fanfare. He has since moved on to other projects, diversifying his filmography with some interesting choices, with the 2024 period romantic drama Queer proving the most offbeat one for the actor.

Daniel Craig played James Bond in five films (Credit: Casino Royale | Eon).

During an interview, Craig opened up about playing a character created by famous author William S. Burroughs. At the same time, Craig talked about the film’s themes and why it would have been difficult for him to make such a movie when he was at the peak of his prowess as James Bond. Here is what the actor had to say about the challenges of working on a movie like Queer.

Daniel Craig Explained Why He Couldn...

Daniel Craig has consistently proven that he’s one of the most versatile talents of our era! He’s played a stoic and suave character like James Bond and has now acted in Queer, a movie that challenged him to play a deeply complex and emotional role. Luca Guadagnino’s directorial debut is a tumultuous love story that explores themes of love, longing, and self-destruction.

Daniel Craig in Queer | The Apartment Pictures

Anyone who’s watched the film can feel how realistic Craig’s portrayal was, and it makes one wonder if he was playing a real-life figure. So, is Queer merely a fictional exploration of human complexity, or does it carry a deeper connection to actual events?

Is Queer Based on a True Story? Daniel Craig in Queer | The Apartment Pictures

Queer is heavily inspired by William S. Burroughs’ 1985 eponymous novella, and is rooted in his life experiences. The...

Daniel Craig said in a recent interview with the U.K.’s Sunday Times that he couldn’t have played his character in Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” while working on James Bond movies.

In the film “Queer,” based on the 1985 semi-autobiographical novella of the same name by William S. Burroughs, Craig plays William Lee, an American expat who becomes infatuated with a discharged U.S. Navy serviceman named Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey).

“I couldn’t have done this while doing Bond,” Craig told the Sunday Times. “It would look reactionary, like I was showing my range.”

He continued, “Early on with Bond I thought I had to do other work, but I didn’t. I was becoming a star, whatever that means, and people wanted me in their films. Incredible. Most actors are out of work for large chunks so you take your job offers — but they left me empty. Then,...

Despite travels through Mexico City, South America, and the heart of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador, Luca Guadagnino’s movie adaptation of “Queer,” William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novel, was surprisingly shot almost entirely on the famed Cinecittà soundstages in Rome, Italy.

Speaking on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast, Guadagnino said that was necessary to allow the film’s production design to capture the complex and unspoken emotions between William Lee (Daniel Craig) and Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), an expat former soldier who makes the heroin-addicted Lee believe he might be finally able to establish an intimate connection with someone.

“We conceived the movie not as a period drama, but as a visualization of the imagination of William S. Burroughs, and the possibility that cinema could let us to play with space as a mirror, as a box, as a canvas that could make us feel the power of the connection more,...

For many actors, the chance to take on a role like James Bond is one that brings guaranteed big screen success and a huge career boost that cannot often come for granted in Hollywood. However, for Daniel Craig, it was both an exhausting and sometimes restrictive part, which prevented him playing certain other roles, like his new role in the movie Queer.

Craig’s run of Bond movies began with Casino Royale in 2006, and came to a dramatic end in the blockbuster hit No Time to Die. Despite instantly cementing himself as one of the greatest James Bonds of all time, it seems that the hefty paycheck and worldwide recognition came with another price for Craig, as he revealed while speaking to The Sunday Times. Speaking about why he believed playing Bond prevented him taking on roles like his latest, he said:

“I couldn't have done this (Queer) while doing Bond.

Daniel Craig’s new film sees him take the role of gay William Lee in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, based on a semi-autobiographical novella by William S. Burroughs, but the former James Bond star has shared he would never have considered taking the role during his time at the helm of the 007 franchise.

He told The Times of London:

“I couldn’t have done this while doing Bond. It would look reactionary, like I was showing my range,” and he said he wasn’t interested in the prospect of taking fans of Bond through to a different depiction of masculinity:

“It’s just not a conversation I wanted. I had it all the way through Bond anyway. Could there be this Bond? That Bond? So anything that is going to inflame that conversation? No — life’s too short.”

Craig says it used to take him half a year to...

“Is the sperm still in there?” That’s a question for the ages, but in the case of Luca Guadagnino’s new film, “Queer,” it’s apt in more ways than one. This particular query came (stop it) during a recent interview with Variety where Daniel Craig asked if a shot of sheets stained with semen was kept in the final cut’s establishing scene. In this opening tableaux, Guadagnino’s camera holds on a series of items that evoke the story about to unfold between Craig’s protagonist and the object of his desire, Drew Starkey’s Eugene Allerton. According to Guadagnino, that particular shot Craig’s referring to has since been removed after the actors watched a very early cut, but have no fear, Guadagnino reassures us, because, “Of course, there’s a lot of semen in the movie.”

Early on, Craig’s William Lee takes an unnamed...

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross pre-empted Brat Summer with their pulse-pounding Challengers score, and now they're back to usher in a very different season with a whole new Luca Guadagnino collaboration. The preeminent duo just released their score for Queer, the director's second release of the year. Just a warning:...

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In Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer,” many of the most formative moments are wordless. Although expat William Lee (Daniel Craig) is more free in Mexico City to drink around the clock, shoot heroin and indulge in his gay desires than in America, there still remains a secretive slyness required in expressing his queerness — even in the slovenly cantinas south of the border.

Thus, much of the communication throughout the film falls largely on the clothes. Achieving this subtlety is “sometimes the hardest thing to do in film,” says Jonathan Anderson, the British-Irish fashion designer who oversaw the costume design on “Queer” and last collaborated with Guadagnino on”Challengers.” He turned to the Silent Film Era to help him master this wordless communication. “You have to be able to read character...

Wicked's box office has been consistently strong throughout its run. Not only has the film adaptation of Wicked received great reviews, but it managed to debut at no. 1 in its first weekend at the box office, bringing in $112.5 million. To date, Wicked has made over $359 million worldwide at the box office, continuing on strong in its second weekend. The film is playing on nearly 4,000 screens across the country, and thus will continue to rake in cash over the next few weeks.

Something especially impressive about Wicked's box office run is the fact that it has been able to maintain its strong performance despite competition. A phenomenon "Glicked" in an attempted Barbenheimer repeat, Wicked had to compete directly with Ridley Scott's Gladiator II during its November 22 opening weekend. The following week, Disney released Moana 2, providing more heat to the fall box office. Even though the animated sequel...

El nuevo drama romántico de Guadagnino cuenta con el guionista de ‘Challengers’. © A24

A24 ha publicado un nuevo tráiler de Queer, la esperada nueva del director Luca Guadagnino y el guionista Justin Kuritzkes (Challengers).

Queer adapta la novela homónima del escritor estadounidense William S. Burroughs y se ambienta en 1950. William Lee, un estadounidense expatriado en Ciudad de México, pasa sus días casi completamente solo, salvo por unos pocos contactos con otros miembros de la pequeña comunidad estadounidense. Su encuentro con Eugene Allerton, un ex soldado expatriado recién llegado a la ciudad, le muestra, por primera vez, que puede ser posible establecer una conexión íntima con alguien.

La película está protagonizada por Daniel Craig (saga 007) y Drew Starkey (Outer Banks). Completan el reparto Lesley Manville (El hilo fantasma), Jason Schwartzman (Los juegos del hambre: Balada de pájaros cantores y serpientes), Henrique Zaga (The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare), el cantante Omar Apollo,...

With sex on screen is becoming more taboo, a film like “Queer” is refreshing. Speaking to Dazed, star Drew Starkey shared his opinion of incorporating sex into narratives and how it can reveal more than just words.

“I think it’s the ultimate form of honesty shown on screen,” said Starkey. “That’s the ultimate form of communication, how they’re intimate with one another. It’s as present as you can be with another person.”

In discussing his character, Navy serviceman Eugene Allerton and his affair with Daniel Craig’s William S. Burroughs stand-in, William Lee, Starkey explained how both characters want the same things, they’re just coming at it from different directions.

“There’s this deep kind of longing underneath the surface with both of these characters, except one presents it more,” Starkey said. “There’s some type of misfiring within Lee that won’t allow him to express that.

Editor’s Note: The following story contains major spoilers for the movie “Queer,” now in theaters.

“Queer,” a new Luca Guadagnino romance so wounding and hypnotic in only the way he can do, ends the way it begins: with William Lee (Daniel Craig) alone again after another fascinating, devastating love affair.

After picking him up in Mexico City, expat, self-loathing, sweating decadent Lee entreats the lithe and elusive former Navyman Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey) to join him in the Ecuadorian jungles on the hunt for the ultimate trip — and the source of yagé, better known as the psychotropic beverage ayahuasca. Once deranged, off-the-grid healer Dr. Cotter (Lesley Manville) sets them up with the tea, Lee and Allerton go on a strange mind-bend of an inward journey, fusing their bodies in a hallucinatory dance until they’re spent.

Lee believes the drug may be the only way to reach his out-of-sync lover,...

Director Luca Guadagnino offers an upsetting response to one country banning Daniel Craig's new Oscar-buzzy movie Queer from getting released there. The new drama, which adapts William S. Burroughs' 1985 novella of the same name, follows Craig's William Lee, a criminal on the run who becomes entranced with expat Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), forming a romantic connection. Reviews for Queer have been incredibly positive, with the film expected to be nominated for multiple Oscars. However, the movie has been banned in Turkey by authorities, who claim it is "too provocative" for public release.

Now, Variety reports that, while speaking at the jury press conference at Marrakech Film Festival in Marrakech, Morocco, Guadagnino offered an upsetting response to Queer getting banned in Turkey. Encouraging viewers in the country to download the film, he argued against censorship of the movie, saying claims that "the movie was creating social disorder" are unfounded. However,...

Over the more than three decades during which Daniel Craig has been acting in the movies, there’s not much that the British A-lister hasn’t done. Most famously, he played James Bond in five films over 15 years (2006’s Casino Royale, 2008’s Quantum of Solace, 2012’s Skyfall, 2015’s Spectre and 2021’s No Time to Die). He has also worked with many of the greatest filmmakers (e.g. Steven Spielberg on 2005’s Oscar-nominated Munich and David Fincher on 2011’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and actors (e.g. Tom Hanks and Paul Newman on 2002’s Road to Perdition) of his time. And he is at the center of Netflix’s biggest film franchise (playing detective Benoit Blanc in 2019’s Knives Out, 2022’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery and the forthcoming Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery).

Never, though, has Craig, 56, been nominated for an Oscar. That could...

Plot: An alcoholic, drug-addicted, middle-aged American expatriate (Daniel Craig) living in Mexico City falls hard for a much younger, recently discharged ex-American Navy serviceman (Drew Starkey).

Review: Of today’s most acclaimed directors, few are as prolific as Luca Guadagnino. With two acclaimed movies vying for awards attention this year, and a whole slew of projects announced for 2025 and beyond (including an unlikely adaptation of DC’s Sgt. Rock), he’s become the rare art-house director whose movies have distinct crossover appeal. Challengers was his biggest financial hit to date, and this one – Queer – pairs him with one of the most iconic modern movie stars, Daniel Craig, who helped reinvent James Bond for the 21st century.

Despite the obvious appeal of their pairing, Queer is a more niche title than Guadagnino’s last few outings. An adaptation of the William S. Burroughs’ novel of the same name, this is a...

Less than a year since Challengers grasped audiences, filmmaker Luca Guadagnino is releasing his next feature, Queer, with A24. The movie is an adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novella that stars Daniel Craig as William Lee, a man observing life pass in 1950s Mexico City. For Lee, many things come easily — romantic trysts, addictions, obsession — but human connection is a struggle until he meets Eugene Allerton, played by Drew Starkey.

Catching up to three big name festival films that opened Wednesday at the specialty box office to start the extended U.S. Thanksgiving holiday weekend – Luca Guadagnino’s Queer from A24 starring 007 Daniel Craig; Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas in Pablo Larraín’s Maria from Netflix, both of which premiered at Venice; and Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed Of The Sacred Fig, which won a clutch of awards Cannes including a Special Jury Award.

All three are in limited release (Maria the widest) in the midst of a great, big busy few weeks at the box office with Moana 2 setting records in the wake of Wicked and Gladiator II. Indies are good counter-programming but face massive competition and have a hard time finding screens. If the box office continues to boom with big budget studio fare it will become clearer in the weeks and months ahead whether that lifts all boats,...