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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...

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...

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.

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...

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,...

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:...

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.

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...

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,...

Luca Guadagnino has been trying to make his latest movie for all of his adult life. The lauded director and producer of offbeat romantic films like Call Me by Your Name and Challengers sticks to this genre with Queer, an adaptation of legendary beat writer William S. Burroughs’ novella, which delves into loneliness and longing, and a wild ayahuasca journey, while following the writer as he pursues a cagey young American in 1950s Mexico City.

Guadagnino first came upon a copy of Queer when he was browsing a bookstore as a teenager in Palermo, Italy, and he was instantly intrigued, as he explained during a Q&a — with stars Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey and writer Justin Kuritzkes — after the movie’s New York Film Festival premiere.

“In the store, immediately, I was exposed to the unequal language of this amazing writer that I didn’t know,” he said of Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical book.

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Luca Guadagnino's latest movie, Queer, has been earning high acclaim since premiering at the Venice Film Festival especially for Daniel Craig's raw and vulnerable performance. Based on William S. Burroughs' unfinished novel of the same name, Queer features many tropes emblematic of the iconic Beat Generation and specific details from the author's life. The end result is a surreal journey through Mexico and South America in the 1950s, and Guadagnino's vision is aided by a smart script penned by Justin Kuritzkes (who also worked with him on Challengers).

Queer centers on Craig's William Lee, often seen as an avatar for the author himself, who lives in an American expat community in Mexico City. He spends his time stumbling from one physical connection to the next, but things change when he meets Eugene Allerton. Their tentative romance is the heart of the story,...

Daniel Craig is one of the most beloved actors in Hollywood who revamped his whole career after starring as James Bond. So we know that he isn’t new to delivering intense and high-pressure performances. But his role in Queer was something that the actor wasn’t prepared to face.

Daniel Craig as William Lee in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer | A24

He’s a seasoned artist with decades of experience and has mastered playing both stoic and heroic characters. However, Queer happened to push him in new ways, and he confronted a side of himself that he wasn’t previously aware of.

Daniel Craig’s Raw Reaction to Queer‘s First Take Daniel Craig as William Lee in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer | A24

For most actors, their first-ever scene can be quite nerve-wracking, but Daniel Craig happens to be an experienced one. After playing the world’s most famous spy for almost 15 years,...

This review was originally published on September 3, 2024 as a part of our Venice Film Festival coverage.

I haven't read the William S. Burroughs novel that Queer is adapted from, but if you told me Luca Guadagnino had gutted it and started from scratch, I'd believe you. His latest movie seems to me to be in clear conversation with his previous work, as if the sensibilities of his four previous features were combined in one movie. It's an enigmatic experience that I desperately want to spend this space interpreting. But I will refrain from going into too much detail and just offer up the lens I saw it through.

An American expat in 1950s Mexico City, struggling with isolation and the remnants of his past, becomes infatuated with a younger man, sparking an intense and obsessive relationship.

Director Luca GuadagninoWriters Justin Kuritzkes, William S. BurroughsCast Colin Bates, Henrique Zaga, Drew Starkey,...

Editor’s Note: This review was originally posted during the 2024 Venice Film Festival. A24 opens “Queer” in select theaters on November 27.

As an adaptation of “Junkie” author William S. Burroughs’ second novel, “Queer” is about chemical addictions, yes. But it’s even more about being so addicted to a person that, no matter how much you turn yourself inside out trying to get them to love you — charming them with your literary voice, lathering yourself into a stupor on drugs, or even going to the far reaches of a jungle — they will never love you the way you want them to, and even telepathy couldn’t help explain to you why.

Luca Guadagnino’s profound and kaleidoscopic new film begins in a post-World War II Mexico City of the mind and ends in the Ecuadorian rainforest on an ayahuasca trip that’s part Apichatpong Weerasethakul, part “2001: A Space Odyssey,...

A new trailer for Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey‘s new romance movie has been released!

On Monday (November 25), A24 debuted a new trailer for the upcoming movie Queer from director Luca Guadagnino.

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 (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.

Head inside to watch the trailer…

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

In a recent interview, Daniel, 56, and Drew, 31, opened up about filming the steamy love scenes for the movie.

Queer hits theaters on November 27.

A mere nine months after the triumphant Grand Slam of Challengers, director Luca Guadagnino is back again. Queer is a very different beast to his earlier, tennis-based ménage à trois: less straightforwardly entertaining, murkier and messier in its intentions and approach. But it has all of his recurring themes and obsessions: sex and desire and longing and melancholy. It’s also perhaps almost too woozy for its own good.

Challengers writer Justin Kuritzkes reunites with his director to (loosely) adapt the novella of the same name by writer William S. Burroughs. Less subversive than Burroughs’ most famous work, Naked Lunch, in Guadagnino and Kuritzkes’ hands it becomes more intensely personal, leaning into the book’s autobiographical elements, an unorthodox tribute to the Beat Generation hero.

Queer may not be Guadagnino's best film, but it is arguably the most him.

Daniel Craig — eagerly finding distance from Bond with every role he...

On Monday, A24 released a new trailer for “Queer,” director Luca Guadagnino’s lush adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ novella starring Daniel Craig and Drew Starkey.

The film tells the druggy, romantic story of William Lee (Craig), an American expat in Mexico City in 1950. He’s a solitary man, but when he meets the much younger Eugene Allerton (Starkey), a former soldier who has just moved to the city, he develops an intimate connection to another person for the first time.

“Queer” is Guadagnino’s second film of 2024, following “Challengers,” his hit psychosexual tennis drama. He reunites with some of his “Challengers” collaborators for “Queer,” including screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes and composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. In addition to Craig and Starkey, the cast features Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Omar Apollo, and Lesley Manville.

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, where it was nominated for the...

If you’re looking for some moody introspection to start your Monday — and who isn’t? — look no further than the new trailer for the William S. Burroughs adaptation “Queer,” directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Daniel Craig as an expatriate in postwar Mexico City exploring his homosexuality. Take a look at the new trailer for “Queer” below.

Just watching this thing is a haunting reverie set to some of Trent Reznor and Atticus’s lush score.

“Queer” has been some new cinematic ground for Craig as an actor. Look at how he awkwardly gives a tongue-in-cheek courtly bow to introduce himself in a bar to Drew Starkey’s much younger man. Clearly he’s infatuated with Starkey’s character from the start. And what follows is a torrid love affair, featuring some of the more graphic gay sex scenes you’d see this side of Pedro Almodóvar.

It’s...

Daniel Craig has had a hugely diverse career in the last decade or so. On the one hand, he is known for playing James Bond. He appeared in five post-20th-century Bond movies, beginning with Casino Royale in 2006. At the same time, Craig's career has included non-Bond dramas, including the 2008 war thriller Defiance, and the book adaptation thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In the last five years, Craig has also been known as Benoit Blanc, the charismatic detective from the Knives Out movies.

Craig was so good as Benoit Blanc that many thought he deserved an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Though he did get acting nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes both years, the actor was snubbed at the Oscars for both Knives Out and its sequel. Despite this academy neglect, this awards...

Few filmmakers working today make movies as sensual — or as sensuous — as Luca Guadagnino. From the sun-ripened romance of Call Me By Your Name, to the cannibal carnalism of Bones And All and the mouth-watering ménage à trois at the centre of this year’s Challengers, the Italian auteur has been making movies sexy again since long before sex (or a lack thereof) in cinema became a daily discourse driver. And his latest, a long-gestating adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical book Queer — in which Daniel Craig plays a lustful American ex-pat who falls head-over-heels for a young buck (Drew Starkey) in mid-century Mexico City — could well be his most smouldering work to date.

For Daniel Craig, whose path first crossed with Guadagnino’s some 20 years ago, just before a little franchise called James Bond catapulted him into the global spotlight, an opportunity to work with the Suspiria filmmaker at...

You can say "Yeah x10," because Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross just released a new song from their soundtrack to Queer. This will be the Nine Inch Nails musicians-turned-film scorers' second collab with the director this year; they previously dreamed up Challengers' Grammy-nominated steroid of a score this past spring.