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Alan Cumming was one of the more surprising names to be announced during that massive Avengers: Doomsday's cast reveal live-stream, but the actor is indeed set to reprise his role as Nightcrawler for the next big MCU event movie.

Cumming made his one and only appearance in 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise as Kurt Wagner in X2, but declined the studio's offer to return for the third film because he had no interest in sitting through the arduous makeup process again.

Wagner didn't show up in again until Kodi Smit-McPhee took over as a younger take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse.

There's been some speculation that Cumming may only be lending his voice to a fully CG take on Nightcrawler, but the actor recently confirmed that this will not be the case.

"Isn't it nuts? I'm excited and amazed," Cumming told Collider when asked about his return for Doomsday.

Of all the actors announced during the massive Avengers: Doomsday's cast reveal live-stream earlier this year, Alan Cumming might have been the most surprising.

Cumming made his one and only appearance in 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise as Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, in X2, but declined the studio's offer to reprise the role for the third film because he had no interest in sitting through the arduous makeup process again. Wagner didn't show up in again until Kodi Smit-McPhee took over as a younger take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Cumming has been happy to chat about his return as Nightcrawler, and may have revealed a little too much about his Doomsday role in a recent interview.

"Right now, I'm doing it again. I'm playing Nightcrawler again and was learning stunts yesterday for some fight scene," said the actor. "I'm sort of learning these fights and I'm like,...

Xtr, the premium nonfiction film and television studio, and Futurism Studios, the film and television arm of online tech and science forum Futurism, today announced “Age of Audio,” a new documentary exploring the resurgence of audio storytelling as it grows from a vivid passion to an extraordinary worldwide industry. As the podcast industry continues to gain popularity, media creators and brands have turned to podcasts as a new form of storytelling. Xtr and Futurism Studios partnered to create “Age of Audio” to showcase the comeback within the art of audio storytelling.

There are an estimated 86 million podcast listeners in the U.S. who are incorporating the medium into their daily lives from entertainment programs and talk shows to news broadcasts (Statistics). “Age of Audio” is an in-depth look at the podcast industry, examining how what we listen to influences everything we do. The documentary takes viewers through the history of...

Amazon’s Prime Video has a collection of underseen, unfairly forgotten films. The streamer’s massive film library has a Western that was robbed of the attention that it deserved by the Covid-19 pandemic, one of 2024’s best dramas and the most underrated movie made by one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the past 20 years. It even has one sci-fi film that you have likely never heard of before, despite it being the blockbuster that first united Tom Cruise with his future “Top Gun: Maverick” director.

Here are seven hidden gem movies streaming on Prime Video in July.

“A Most Violent Year” (A24) “A Most Violent Year” (2014)

Released in the midst of A24’s ascent up the independent film world, writer-director J.C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year” is a slow-burn crime drama that deserves to be more well-known among moviegoers. The film follows a fuel supplier (Oscar Isaac...

Matthew McConaughey donned the role of Cooper in the 2014 film Interstellar, where the odds were stacked against him and only the concept of time was his ally in a race to save Earth before everything perished.

Although the idea of a world-ending event triggered by wars of famine has been explored countless times, only some movies can provide the depth that Christopher Nolan was able to provide. One insane theory states that although Interstellar is a stand-alone movie, it is also connected to a 2009 Charlize Theron film, The Road, which was a flop.

How Matthew McConaughey’s Interstellar Serves as a Prequel to Charlize Theron’s The Road

Interstellar saw the world not believing in the works of NASA because when the spaceships took off, they initially thought that the scientists were going to save the population. However, that quickly turned into fear as those scientists deserted the world, and...

“Tell me how it felt to be onstage,” the journalist played by Kodi Smit-McPhee says to Maria Callas in the new trailer for Maria. “An exultation,” she responds. “An intoxication. I thought the stage itself would burn.” Starring Angelina Jolie, Pablo Larraín’s Maria is a swooning portrait of that cocktail of emotion.

Jolie has already earned a Golden Globe nomination for her stunning performance as Maria Callas. Previously, she won an Academy Award for her performance in Girl, Interrupted and has displayed her incredible range in films including Changeling, The Good Shepherd, Maleficent, and Those Who Wish Me Dead.

Renowned Chilean filmmaker Larraín is known for such films as Jackie, Spencer, No, Neruda, and 2023’s El Conde, which garnered a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination for Edward Lachman’s chiaroscuro work.

Larraín says, “I’m excited to partner again with the Netflix team who care so passionately about movies. This...

When I watch "The Batman," I never want it to end. Even three hours isn't enough time in this world, and the spin-off show "The Penguin" could only tide me over so much. Even "The Penguin" setting the stage for "The Batman Part II" is bittersweet because that sequel remains years away.

Matt Reeves' "The Batman Part II" has been delayed several times. The movie is currently set to open October 1, 2027, but DC Studios co-chief James Gunn told Entertainment Weekly that he hadn't seen Reeves' script as of the end of March 2025.

It's easy to feel cynical right now. On top of these delays, Gunn is reimagining the DC Universe on film and it's difficult to see Reeves and actor Robert Pattinson's Batman fitting into that. DC Studios has even announced a different Batman movie, "The Brave and the Bold," featuring Bruce Wayne and his son Damian/Robin.

But...

This Halloween season, we will have the chance to go back to Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts and re-visit 11-year-old Norman Babcock. That’s right, Laika’s stop-motion masterpiece ParaNorman will be back in theaters for a one-week engagement this October.

Laika previously did something similar with its 2024 re-release of Coraline, bringing it to theaters in 2D and RealD 3D, and that was a huge success. Coraline brought in $56 million world-wide during its re-release, making it the top-grossing stop-motion film of all time.

ParaNorman won several awards upon its initial release, and it will be presented in remastered 2D and RealD 3D formats. The re-release kicks off the 20th anniversary celebration of Laika.

ParaNorman’s re-release will feature a new animated short by Laika, titled ParaNorman: The Thrifting, which is directed by Thibault LeClercq (the lead character designer for Laika). Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Anna Kendrick (Woman of the Hour) lent...

When Alfonso Cuarón stepped into the world of series to direct AppleTV+’s “Disclaimer,” he called on Adam Gough to assemble and cut the series.

The two had previously worked together on “Children of Men,” with Gough serving as an apprentice editor. In 2018, the two joined forces again to co-edit the Netflix film, “Roma.” Through it all, they had developed a shorthand where minimal communication was key to their collaboration.

“Disclaimer” is based on the novel of the same name by Renée Knight. It follows acclaimed journalist Catherine Ravenscroft, played by Cate Blanchett, who receives a novel from an unknown author. She is horrified to realize she is now the main character in a story that exposes her darkest secrets and forces her to confront her past. Sacha Baron Cohen plays her husband, Robert, and Kodi Smit-McPhee plays their son Nicholas.

As the series straddles a non-linear structure, going between present,...

Of all the actors announced during the recent Avengers: Doomsday's cast reveal live-stream, Alan Cumming might have been the most surprising.

Cumming made his one and only appearance in 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise as Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, in X2, but declined the studio's offer to reprise the role for the third film because he had no interest in sitting through the arduous makeup process again.

Wagner didn't show up in again until Kodi Smit-McPhee took over as a younger take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse, but the character was pretty much relegated to background support aside from a couple of decent action scenes.

Nightcrawler's charismatic, Errol Flynn-inspired nature has yet to be fully explored in live-action, but it sounds like we will get to see the teleporter's swashbuckling side when Cumming reprises the role in Avengers: Doomsday.

When asked if Nightcrawler will have a...

While it may seem like a dream job to be an actor, the reality can often be very different if things don’t quite go as planned on a film set. That was true for X-Men star Alan Cumming, who is set to return to the Marvel fold as Nightcrawler in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, and has found the whole experience much more enjoyable than when he worked on X2: X-Men United back in 2003.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Cumming explained how his Marvel return was as much a shock to him as anyone else and was not something that he ever believed would happen. Recalling the “miserable” experience he had working on his previous X-Men outing, The Traitors host said:

"No [I didn't expect the call to return]. There was already a younger version of my character played by Kodi Smit-McPhee. That’s happened to me several times, where there’s a remake of something...

The Avengers: Doomsday cast reveal saw Patrick Stewart (Professor X), Ian McKellen (Magneto), Alan Cumming (Nightcrawler), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), James Marsden (Cyclops), Kelsey Grammer (Beast), and Deadpool & Wolverine's Channing Tatum (Gambit) all board the movie.

Characters like Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), Storm (Halle Berry), and Rogue (Anna Paquin) are all notable by their absence, as is Hugh Jackman's Wolverine (though we got a potentially positive update on that front yesterday). We expect to see a bigger X-Men team than the one above, perhaps with a few new Multiversal Variants added to the mix for good measure.

Back to those confirmed for Avengers: Doomsday, and Cumming's Nightcrawler remains one of the most beloved characters from the X-Men franchise, despite only appearing in 2003's X2: X-Men United.

The teleporter's attack on the White House is rightly considered iconic, so the actor reprising the role in Avengers: Doomsday is incredibly exciting...

Following the success of Coraline’s re-release to theaters, another Laika production will find new life. According to Variety, the 2012 stop-motion film, ParaNorman, will hit theaters from Fathom Entertainment just in time for Halloween. The event will feature a new remaster of the film in 3D and be accompanied by a new short entitled: “ParaNorman: The Thrifting.” The additional content will star Anna Kendrick and Stranger Things alum Finn Wolfhard. Wolfhard has made a name for himself in genre fare with features such as Ghostbusters, It, and starring and directing his own horror film, Hell of a Summer.

Information about Kendrick and Wolfhard’s roles is sparing, but considering the former’s role in the original film, it is a good guess that she will be reprising her part as Courtney Babcock from the studio that continues to break records. Laika’s operations officer, David Burke, also gave context to...

ParaNorman is returning to theaters this Halloween, newly remastered for RealD 3D and 2D formats, for a one-week engagement.

Laika’s 2012 stop-motion animated film will open on October 25 via Fathom Entertainment. It will also be released in international markets beginning October 23 from Trafalgar Releasing.

The film will be accompanied by a new, CG-animated short, ParaNorman: The Thrifting, starring Finn Wolfhard (“Stranger Things”) and Anna Kendrick reprising her role of Norman’s older sister, Courtney Babcock.

The short is written by Chris Butler, who wrote and co-directed ParaNorman with Sam Fell, and directed by Laika lead character designer Thibault LeClercq.

“ParaNorman was a breakthrough film for Laika — emotionally rich, visually daring, and proudly weird in all the right ways,” said Laika Chief Marketing & Operations Officer David Burke. “Bringing it back to theaters in stunning remastered 3D, paired with a brand-new short film, is an invitation for audiences to rediscover the heart...

Laika’s “ParaNorman” is returning from the great beyond.

The 2012 feature, directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler (who also wrote the screenplay), will have a one-week theatrical run this Halloween. Trafalgar Releasing will be handling international markets, with the movie debuting on Thursday, Oct. 23 and Fathom Entertainment is handling the movie’s rollout in the United States starting on Saturday, October 25. The movie has been remastered and will be presented in RealD 3D, along with traditional 2D exhibitions.

Additionally, there will be a brand-new short film from the world of “ParaNorman” included in this release.

“ParaNorman: The Thrifting” is directed by Laika’s lead character designer Thibault LeClercq and written by Chris Butler and is a fully computer-animated short, produced in association with Passion Pictures. The short stars “Stranger Things” breakout Finn Wolfhard and Anna Kendrick reprising her role of Norman’s older sister, Courtney Babcock.

The re-release of “ParaNorman,...

Imagine you’re an actor, the phone rings, and it’s Alfonso Cuarón offering you a role in his next project. No audition.

That’s exactly how Leila George landed the part of young Catherine Ravenscroft in Apple TV+’s Disclaimer, alongside Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Lesley Manville. Cuarón wanted George to play Blanchett’s character in flashbacks told from differing perspectives, which would prove key to unlocking the mystery at the heart of the thriller.

Opposite such powerhouse acting talent, George found a way to make the role her own — so much so that Cuarón, who had originally intended to just use her as a body double, decided instead to let her performance stand fully on its own. Critics took note, calling her work “strikingly remarkable.” “Leila George shines as the younger Catherine,” wrote Carla Meyer in the San Francisco Chronicle. “Shown in flashbacks, George...

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Zombies have been a thing in cinema for nearly a century now, and since then, we have seen countless films that employ the flesh-eating monsters to tell various kinds of stories. In this sub-genre, we have seen many high and low budget films from the incredibly popular World War Z to the brilliant 28 Days Later, and while these films are every bit worthy of the praise they get, there are some films that get nearly no praise, as the masses still haven’t heard about them. To rectify that, we have compiled a list of the best and most entertaining zombie films that you might not have heard of.

One Cut of the Dead (AMC+ & Rent on Prime Video) Credit – Shudder

One Cut of the Dead is a Japanese independent zombie comedy film written and directed by Shin’ichirō Ueda.

Editor’s note: Deadline’s It Starts on the Page (Limited) features 10 standout limited or anthology series scripts in 2025 Emmy contention.

Disclaimer, Alfonso Cuarón’s adaptation of the 2015 Renée Knight novel for Apple TV+, offers a sleight of hand throughout nearly the entire course of the limited series — all coming to a head in the finale, where it flips its claustrophobic narrative on its head, all while indicting viewers and their possible ill-informed judgments of its leading woman. The psychological thriller, on its surface, traces the public downfall of prominent journalist Catherine Ravenscroft (Cate Blanchett), whose worst nightmare comes to fruition when she’s confronted by an pseudonymously written roman à clef that exposes the long-buried secret of her life. Amid a flurry of personal and professional turmoil largely orchestrated by Stephen (Kevin Kline) — an embittered widower who believes Catherine is to blame for the death of his teenage son...

Grace in Memoir Of A Snail. Adam Elliot: 'I always try to push as many buttons on the audience as I can and keep the film unpredictable' Photo: Arenamedia Pty Ltd

Memoir Of A Snail, streaming now, BFI Player

It’s been a while since I’ve included the BFI’s subscription service in the Stay-at-Home, but there’s some great things to watch on there at the moment, and they have a free 14-day trial if you’ve not already given them a go. It’s certainly worth doing that for this fabulous stop-motion animation that I can’t help feeling flew under the radar a bit last year because of the championing of Flow. Incredibly detailed – and most certainly not for children – it tells the tale of Grace Pudel (which rhymes with ‘muddle’). Grace (voiced by Sarah Snook) has not had an easy life and she takes us through it,...

Oscar-winning composer and award-winning songwriter Finneas is no stranger to writing music for film. The composer and songwriter won Oscars — with his superstar sister Billie Eilish — for “No Time to Die” from the James Bond film of the same name, and “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie” in 2024. He has won Grammys and has a solo career as well as multiplatinum music with Eilish. He is a songwriter of all trades, but when it came to writing music for AppleTV+’s limited series “Disclaimer,” the series creator and director Alfonso Cuarón wanted something different from him.

Despite Finneas’ extensive resume, he had never scored TV, but Cuarón was a fan. Although the musician was on board during filming, it wasn’t until post-production that the work really began. “He sent me a bunch of music that he loved as references, and it was mostly string quartets,” Finneas says. “I was immediately like,...

The X-Men’s Nightcrawler just got his darkest redesign ever in a nightmare fuel cosplay shoot. For 50 years, Nightcrawler has been a fan-favorite member of the X-Men. He is one of the most complex members of the team, resembling a demon but also deeply religious. Nightcrawler is a fun, swash-buckling character, but a new cosplay shot from nycosplayer unlocks the Fuzzy Elf’s nightmarish potential.

Nycosplayer unveiled the shoot in a post on Instagram. Consisting of four photos, the shoot envisions Nightcrawler as a bloodthirsty zombie. In two of the photos, the zombie Nightcrawler is clutching a heavily adorned wrought-iron cross, a nod to his Catholicism. Nightcrawler then lunges in the other two photos. Nycosplayer’s makeup for the shoot was on-point as well, and he added flair by including two Nightcrawler quotes that speak to his character: one about his appearance, and another about his faith. Nycosplayer’s...

Sydney Sweeney Veers Between worlds. To her 25 million followers on Instagram, she’s a glamorous, polished, pin-up type, and there’s something of the old-school, old-fashioned movie star about her public image. She leaned into that in the first season of The White Lotus, as the acidic pool-lounger Olivia; warred with and, duh, fell for, Glen Powell’s beefcake in crowd-pleasing romcom Anyone But You; and played a youthful superhero-in-waiting in Madame Web. Look at it from one angle, and she’s the essence of the trad leading lady. But for the most part, her work tells a different story.

The 27-year-old rose to fame as the naive, fragile Cassie in HBO’s Euphoria, in which her character is — deep breath — pressured into having an abortion, has a messy affair with her best friend’s abusive boyfriend, and eventually collapses into a chaotic, much-memed bathroom meltdown — while dressed like she’s in the musical Oklahoma!.

During this particular TV season, it’s easy to understand why parents, especially those of young men, have experienced all manner of visceral reactions to both ripped-from-the-headlines and smaller-scale storylines.

Describing the first scene of “Adolescence” to IndieWire’s Toolkit podcast, in which the audience enters the limited series through the eyes of the detectives raiding a family’s home, creator/star Stephen Graham said, “I wanted to grab the audience by the scruff of the neck and that camera moving up through that house and going into a boy’s bedroom and have police point guns at ’em.”

Naturally, it’s disorienting to hear that a 13-year-old boy is being arrested for murder, but by the third episode in the lauded series, viewers see a switch flip. Suddenly, they have an understanding of the environment the child was raised in — and what information was being fed to him inside...

Luke Evans has been tapped to co-star alongside Noomi Rapace in “Traction,” an action-thriller about a former U.S. soldier leading a humanitarian mission through war-torn Chechnya. The film will be written and directed by Lorraine Darrow, the filmmaker behind “Pas Sages.”

Kate (Rapace), accompanied by her trusted Chechen ally Magomed, finds her mission taking a perilous turn when they unwittingly harbor a young rebel, Larissa, and her mysterious package. “Traction” follows them as they are forced to take on a cynical American war photographer (Evans), a schoolteacher and her injured student. Together, the group must navigate treacherous terrain and evade both Russian forces and guerrilla fighters.

Rapace and Evans previously shared the screen in 2019’s “Angel of Mine.” Evans’ credits include “Beauty and the Beast,” “Nine Perfect Strangers,” “Criminal” and “Weekend in Taipai.” Rapace is best known for her performances in “Prometheus,” “The Girl with the Dragon,” and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Apple TV+ will submit seven cast members from Disclaimer for Emmy consideration, Gold Derby has learned.

Kevin Kline as Stephen Brigstocke, a retired teacher and author, will submit in Best Limited Series/Movie Actor, while Cate Blanchett as Catherine Ravenscroft, an award-winning documentarian, will compete in Best Limited Series/Movie Actress. Both A-listers are on the hunt for their first Emmy wins. Kline is a two-time nominee for Bob's Burgers (2017) and Great Performances (2009), while Blanchett has a pair of Emmy nods to her name for Mrs. America (2020) in acting and producing.

In the featured categories, Sacha Baron Cohen as Robert Ravenscroft, Louis Partridge as Jonathan Brigstocke, and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nicholas Ravenscroft have been entered in Best Limited/Movie Supporting Actor, while Leila George as Young Catherine Ravenscroft and Lesley Manville as Nancy Brigstocke have been submitted in Best Limited/Movie Supporting Actress.

Four-time Oscar winner Alfonso Cuarón is the creator,...

A planned UK tour of Let the Right One In, the stage adaptation written by Jack Thorne, has been cancelled ahead of its October 2025 launch. Producers confirmed the news this weekend, attributing the cancellation to “unforeseen circumstances.”

The production was scheduled to begin at Northampton’s Royal and Derngate and conclude in Liverpool by April 2026. The tour was set to visit multiple cities, including Bromley, Bristol, Salford, Fareham, Cardiff, Southend, Eastbourne, Glasgow, and Birmingham.

Ticket holders are expected to be contacted by their original point of purchase. Details about potential rescheduling or revised plans have not been provided.

The play is based on the bestselling Swedish novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, which became internationally recognized following the 2008 Swedish-language film adaptation. The narrative, which explores isolation, connection, and violence through the story of a reclusive boy and a vampire girl, was later remade as a U.S. feature in 2010 starring Chloë Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

The UK tour of the play Let The Right One In, penned by Jack Thorne, has been cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

BBC News reports that the production, based on the best-selling Swedish novel and hit film by John Ajvide Lindqvist, was due to begin its UK tour in October 2025 and run until April of next year. This follows its previous successful run in Manchester.

However, this weekend it quotes a spokesperson saying: “Due to unforeseen circumstances, the UK tour of Let the Right One In is no longer able to proceed as planned.”

The film of Let The Right One In was released in 2008 in its original Swedish. Its success inspired a US version to be made in 2010 starring Chloe Grace Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the couple of solitary teenagers – one a vampire – who strike up an unlikely but soothing friendship.

Thorne was the co-creator of Adolescence, the...

Sydney Sweeney refuses to put her "personal feelings" into her characters.The 27-year-old actress has revealed an acting coach taught her how to stay removed from her roles because she wants to be able to have a "healthy, balanced life" away from her work.She told Empire magazine: "I love to be able to jump fully into these characters and go mad, almost, in the scenes, but if I took that home, that definitely would not be a fun dynamic for my friends and family. "I don’t ever put any of my own personal thoughts or memories or feelings into a character. I was taught that by my friend Kodi Smit-McPhee’s dad, Andy [an acting coach]. "He taught it to me as a way of just making sure that I can have a healthy, balanced life, and being able to know who Sydney is as a person, and then also be...

We will update this article throughout the season, along with all our predictions, so make sure to keep checking IndieWire for the latest news from the 2025 Emmys race. The nomination round of voting takes place from June 12 to June 23, with the official Emmy nominations announced Tuesday, July 15. Afterwards, final voting commences on August 18 and ends the night of August 27. The 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards are set to take place on Sunday, September 14, and air live on CBS at 8:00 p.m. Et/ 5:00 p.m. Pt.

The State of the Race

Prior to the most recent Emmys, where Lamorne Morris earned both a surprise nomination and win for his turn in the fifth season of “Fargo,” the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie race usually saw one contender breeze their way toward a victory with little competition. For instance, “Black Bird” star Paul Walter Hauser...

In 2018, Sony Pictures released Alpha, a prehistoric adventure film. The movie received positive reviews from the critics, but barely impressed at the box office.

Now, Alpha has become a hit on Netflix, per Tudum, seven years after its release. The adventure film comes from John Wick's spin-off limited series The Continental director Albert Hughes. A love letter to dogs, Alpha is set in the last Ice Age and follows a young hunter who encounters and befriends an injured wolf, becoming his best friend.

For the week between Mar. 31 and Apr. 6, Alpha debuted in third place globally, and fourth in the U.S. The movie received 5.5 million views, and 8.9 million hours viewed. The adventure survival film entered the Top 10 in five countries, including the U.S. Alpha's popularity continues, as the movie is still in the charts in seventh place globally, per FlixPatrol.

Alpha's logline reads, "Europe, 20,000 years ago.

Netflix's weekly Top 10 lists are always worth a look, not least of all because they often reveal truly unexpected gems that the streaming platform has managed to resurrect. For example, FlixPatrol is reporting that "Alpha" (a film that was absolutely overlooked upon its initial release) made it onto Netflix's Top 10 in multiple countries on April 6, 2025, and has continued to chart in much of the world in the week since then.

Directed and co-written by Albert Hughes, "Alpha" is a 2018 survival adventure in which an injured Ice Age-era young man is separated from his tribe and has to team up with a similarly inconvenienced wolf to stay alive. Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, the movie is an entertaining and exciting adventure in a relatively uncommon live-action setting. As such, it's good to see that streaming has given this largely forgotten film a new chance to find its audience.

Michael Fassbender is among the best actors of his generation and certainly among the most daring. While many of his contemporaries have settled into their own niches, Fassbender has shown an ability to try out many different genres and rarely fails to deliver a compelling performance. While Fassbender was briefly absent from the big screen over the last few years, he delivered a tremendous comeback performance in Steven Soderbergh’s twisty spy thriller “Black Bag,” which is already the best film of 2025 so far.

Fassbender may be known for the tremendous commitment he shows in his dramatic roles, but he has also developed a strong knack for comedy. Despite being regarded as one of the more artistically minded stars working today, Fassbender has managed to be a scene-stealer in two separate franchises, having played the mutant anti-hero Magneto in the rebooted “X-Men” series and the robot David in both “Prometheus” and “Alien: Covenant.

Tim Roth’s next movie featuring a Shōgun star just got a thrilling new look. Roth has been set to play the lead role in Tornado, the upcoming action thriller that also stars Takehiro Hira alongside Game of Thrones veteran Rory McCann, who is famed for playing The Hound in the HBO series. Collider is thrilled to partner with IFC Films to unveil the first exclusive trailer for Tornado, which premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival in February. In addition to Roth, Hira, and McCann, Jack Lowden and Kōki, have also been set for roles in Tornado, which is a thriller coming from writer/director John Maclean. Maclean made his feature debut in Slow West, the 2015 R-rated Western thriller starring Kodi Smit-McPhee opposite Caren Pistorius.

Tornado is set against the rugged backdrop of late 1700s Britain. The film follows Tornado, a young and determined Japanese woman who lands in the...

Of all the actors announced as being part of last week's massive Avengers: Doomsday's cast reveal live-stream, Alan Cumming might have been the most surprising.

Cumming made his one and only appearance in 20th Century Fox's X-Men franchise as Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, in X2, but declined the studio's offer to reprise the role for the third film because he had no interest in sitting through the arduous makeup process again.

Wagner didn't show up in again until Kodi Smit-McPhee took over as a younger take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse.

There's been some speculation that Cumming may only be lending his voice to a fully CG take on Nightcrawler, but the actor has now confirmed that this will not be the case, as he's already done a makeup test.

"Isn't it nuts? I'm excited and amazed," Cumming tells Collider when asked about his return for Doomsday.

With the rumors and speculations soaring around the upcoming final installment (Star Trek 4 ) of the J.J. Abrams-produced Star Trek franchise, which is more than likely to include the reprise of the Enterprise crew portrayed by Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Lt. Uhura), and others. Despite Quinto’s convincing performance as Spock in the Kelvin timeline, should Star Trek creators decide to go in a different direction with a new cast, here are four talented Oscar-nominated actors who could take on the role of the archetypal Vulcan.

"Disclaimer - Chapter 5-7" Red Carpet - The 81st Venice International Film Festival - Kodi Smit-McPhee | Daniele Venturelli/GettyImages

1. Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Actor)

28-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee has been racking up acting accolades since his feature film debut at age 11 with co-star Eric Bana in Romulus, May Father, for which he [Smit-McPhee] received the Young Actor’s Award from the Australian Film Institute.

Exclusive: The London Barbican Theatre’s scintillating production of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, boasting an all-star ensemble led by Cate Blanchett, Tom Burke and Emma Corrin and directed by the estimable Berlin-based Thomas Ostermeier, is setting course for New York in 2026, multiple sources inform me.

The play, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and Ostermeier, is propelled by blasts of oomph. It feels so marvelously fresh that it could have been written today. Indeed, Macmillan and Ostermeier keep on eye on current events and amend their script as and when significant news emerges.

Like, on Thursday night, Jason Watkin’s Sorin made a point about the “f*cking high tariffs” he has to pay on his country estate’s farm produce, a clear reference to the tariffs introduced Wednesday by the Trump administration.

Jason Wakins in ‘The Seagull’ at the Barbican Theatre

The line had the Barbican audience whooping with irresistible,...

X-Men MCU Fixes(Photo Credit –Facebook)

The X-Men movies from the Fox universe definitely had their highs and lows; let’s be honest, some of them were a mess. But guess what? The MCU might just be stepping in to clean up the mess with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Marvel recently shocked fans by bringing in some of the original X-Men cast members from the Fox films, and this could mean a chance to fix some of the biggest mistakes from the past.

The Fox X-Men movies had more than a few hiccups, from confusing timelines to wasted characters. Now, with the MCU at the helm, there’s hope they’ll smooth things over. Whether it’s bringing in better character arcs or finally fixing some wild plot holes, these upcoming crossovers could be exactly what the X-Men need to get back on track. Let’s dive into...

On X (formerly Twitter), Marvel Studios revealed the impressive lead cast of Avengers: Doomsday, slated for release in 2026. The new movie will mark the first time the titular team has assembled since 2019's Avengers: Endgame. With several of Earth's mightiest heroes now either deceased or retired, the new movie will feature a new Avengers roster, presumably led by Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson as the McU's new Captain America. However, the Avengers aren't the only heroes set to appear in Doomsday, as they will be crossing paths with other teams of heroes from their universe and beyond.

In addition to those cast members expected to reprise their MCU roles to join the new Avengers lineup, the Avengers: Doomsday cast announcement included the names of several stars from other Marvel movies. All four leads of The Fantastic Four: First Steps were among the Doomsday cast, as were the majority of the...

During a 5-hour stream, Marvel Studios revealed 27 names that will appear in the highly anticipated crossover movie, Avengers: Doomsday.

Some names, like Vanessa Kirby, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn, were expected, especially considering Fantastic Four history with Doctor Doom. Other names were more surprising, with nearly the entire Thunderbolts* cast, excluding Taskmaster, set to have a role in the film. Additionally, Lewis Pullman’s Sentry was confirmed to appear.

However, the biggest shock came when former X-Men stars like Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart were revealed to be reprising their iconic roles, alongside James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, and Alan Cumming.

Related: Insider Reports Reveal the Reason Tom Holland Was Missing from ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Cast Reveal!

Cumming played Nightcrawler in only one movie: X2: X-Men United (2003).

Even though fans loved his performance, he did not return for later X-Men movies. The main reason was that the heavy blue makeup...

Alan Cumming has us all excited with his latest Instagram video. The Scottish actor, known for his vibrant personality, is stepping back into the blue skin of Nightcrawler for Marvel’s upcoming blockbuster ‘Avengers: Doomsday’. Dressed in a festive Christmas hat and a cozy scarf, he’s hopping around what looks like his own home, showing off some playful energy that’s got everyone talking.

The big news dropped recently when Marvel confirmed Cumming would return as the teleporting mutant he first played over 20 years ago in ‘X2: X-Men United’. That 2003 film gave us a Nightcrawler who stole the show with his quick moves and gentle charm, even if he only got one shot at the role back then. Now, he’s joining a massive lineup for ‘Avengers: Doomsday’, set to hit theaters on May 1, 2026, and I can’t wait to see him in action again.

In the video, Cumming...

Since its launch half a decade ago, Apple TV+ has built up a strong reputation for adopting a quality over quantity approach in order to deliver some of the best shows and documentaries streaming has to offer. It's a platform filled wall-to-wall with lavish productions to watch and auteur filmmakers to appreciate, star-studded weekly-drop series to devour and cutting edge documentaries you simply must see.

It's because of this that, despite the vast content libraries of Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video, the house that Tim Cook built has become many a discerning viewer's chosen streaming home. Now, we know what you're thinking: with so many buzzy shows and docs to pick from, wouldn't it be great if there existed some sort of nifty, hand-curated guide to the best the streamer has to offer?

Well, whaddaya know? Team Empire have pooled the expertise of our crack team of critics from the...

Marvel is getting exciting again. After a few years with some rough movies following the hit film Avengers: Endgame, Marvel announced the cast for Avengers: Doomsday with a livestream. The cast is extremely large, and the stream lasted more than five hours with the sheer number of people returning for the film. There were certainly some exciting announcements, like Chris Hemsworth playing Thor and Paul Rudd playing Ant-Man, or the reveal that most of the 2000s X-Men actors would be reprising their roles.

Length aside, the livestream was also disappointing for quite a few reasons. Numerous actors who were rumored to appear in Avengers: Doomsday weren't named in the livestream, and the livestream spoiled a few details about Thunderbolts*. I tried to be as excited as I could about the announcements, but I couldn't help feeling equally worried that Avengers: Doomsday might be too much of a mess to save the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Bamf!

Of all the actors announced as being part of Avengers: Doomsday's cast during yesterday's massive reveal live-stream, Alan Cumming might have been the most surprising.

Cumming appeared in 20th Century Fox's X-Men sequel as Kurt Wagner, aka Nightcrawler, but declined the studio's offer to reprise the role for the third film because he had no interest in sitting through the arduous makeup process again.

Wagner didn't show up in the franchise again until Kodi Smit-McPhee took over as a younger take on the character in X-Men: Apocalypse.

“The character is really interesting, the message of the film (tolerance of others who are different from us) was very timely and unusual for a Hollywood blockbuster, but the real drag was having to spend over four hours a day having two men poke my face,” Cumming posted to his website recently. “Then there were the harnesses for the tail and for flying,...

Four-time Grammy Award winner Lizzo is officially going Hollywood as one of the world's most popular artists is set to star as a legendary musician in new music biopic for Amazon MGM Studios.

Per Variety, Lizzo is set to star as legendary musician Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the film, Rosetta, from producers Forest Whitaker, Nina Yang Bongiovi, and Kevin Beisler. In addition to starring in the film, Lizzo will also serve as a producer. Natalie Chaidez and Kwynn Perry (Tigerbelles) serve as writers for the movie, however, no director is attached to the project yet. Tharpe rose to prominence as a gospel singer in the 1930s and would become a major influence for many rock & roll artists including Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry.

According to an official description for the film, Rosetta "captures a pivotal period in her life — one of groundbreaking innovation, defiant passion, and secret love. As she...

While Anton Chekhov always thought of The Seagull as a comedy, that fact has frequently been forgotten through productions that fall into the soporific trap set by angsty, moping, lovelorn characters losing their hearts and minds in the Russian countryside.

There’s no such danger with Thomas Ostermeier, who once declared that he wanted to bring “some rock ‘n’ roll” to Ibsen (his Enemy of the People had the protagonist play Bowie covers in a band and open a political discussion with the audience). The firebrand German director now blasts the cobwebs off Chekhov with boisterous, dazzling delight.

But as irreverent as Ostermeier may seem — as self-referential, ironic, meta, playful — he’s true to his material. The reality of The Seagull is that it treads that fine line between comedy and tragedy. And while this production is an incredible blast, teetering on farce, Ostermeier and co-adaptor Duncan Macmillan (People, Places...

British actor Tom Burke has been spending a lot of time with Cate Blanchett lately.

Burke (“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”) is currently starring alongside the Oscar winner in a new adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s classic “The Seagull” at London’s Barbican, and the two also worked together on Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming espionage thriller “Black Bag.”

In “The Seagull,” Blanchett stars as Arkadina, a celebrated actress whose larger-than-life presence dominates both the stage and her personal relationships. Arriving at her family’s country estate for the weekend, she finds herself caught in a storm of conflicting desires. Her playwright son, Konstantin (Kodi Smit-McPhee), struggles to step out of her shadow as he pursues his own artistic ambitions and her lover Trigorin (Burke) becomes the object of affection for the aspiring young actress Nina (Emma Corrin).

Duncan Macmillan and Thomas Ostermeier’s adaptation caused the cast to collectively embrace...

Netflix produced its first non-documentary feature in 2015. It was called Beasts of No Nation, and it was fine. However, the film did not get nominated for an Academy Award. Lots has changed in the last decade.

Your favorite streamer often gets nominated for major awards each year. 2025 is no different. Emilia Pérez has 13 nominations alone, including one for Best Picture. So far, Netflix has yet to get a win in that category, and Emilia Pérez is not the favorite this year, either.

In fact, Netflix has also almost been entirely shut out of wins in the acting categories. Only Laura Dern won, and that was for Best Supporting Actress in 2020. But the streamer does do well in some other categories. Those might not be part of the Big 6, but when it comes to documentaries, Netflix knows what it is doing. Just see below, and you'll know.

The 2025 Oscars will be held on Sunday,...

During the promotional tour for “Mad Max: Fury Road” back in 2015, director George Miller discussed how silent cinema had inspired the filmmaking ethos behind his chase-movie epic. His hope was that you could potentially watch “Fury Road” as a silent film and still get most of what you needed in terms of the story from the visual language and physical performances of the actors.

When it comes to milieu, the petrol-punk dystopia of “Mad Max” is far removed from the period-piece trappings of “Tornado,” writer-director John Maclean’s long-awaited follow-up to his offbeat western “Slow West” (2015). But for the length of its gripping first act, Maclean’s earthy survival thriller seems pointed towards very similar ends.

Light on dialogue and exposition, the roughly 25-minute opening stretch excels as a work of sustained tension, with the odd farcical stunt — reminding you that this is the same filmmaker behind the “Slow West...

Anna Kendrick's roles in different films have showcased her versatility as a Hollywood actress.Netflix/YouTube; Universal Studios/YouTubeKatherine McKay in '50/50'LionsgateFilmsUK/YouTube

Anna Kendrick plays the role of young therapist Katherine McKay in the 2011 film 50/50, inspired by writer Will Reiser's cancer battle. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Adam Lerner receives treatment from the inexperienced psychologist and Ph.D. candidate, but Katherine successfully manages to make him open up to her until their relationship progresses.

Stephanie Smothers in 'A Simple Favor'Lionsgate Movies/YouTube

Kendrick appears in the 2018 film A Simple Favor as Stephanie Smothers, a widowed single mother who forms a friendship with Emily Nelson (Blake Lively). Her life turns upside down when Emily goes missing, leading her to investigate and solve the disappearance.

Alice in 'Alice, Darling'Lionsgate Movies/YouTube

The Mary Nighy-directed 2022 film Alice, Darling sees the 39-year-old play the role of Alice, a young woman...

Alcoholism. Fetishism. Death. Aardman this certainly ain’t, but Adam Elliot’s film-festival-storming stop-motion animation proves more than capable of summoning big emotions through its clay creations. The characters of Memoir Of A Snail are more scuffed and visibly weighed down by the world, but the earnestness and vulnerability they carry throughout this sombre and occasionally darkly funny saga implores you to stick with them through the pain of it all.

Grace (Sarah Snook) — a collector of snails and owner of a cosy snail hat — is both the protagonist and narrator of the film, which, in biopic fashion, begins at the graveside of a beloved friend, before leaping right back to her birth in the ’70s. It’s an adroit vocal performance from Snook, who plays Grace with empathy that never crosses into over-sentimentality throughout a life marred by loss and loneliness. Grace’s mother dies while delivering her and...