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Exclusive: David Lynch had a great knack for discovering leading-lady talent, actresses who would ascend to bigger heights. One of those is Lara Flynn Boyle, who played the role of Donna Hayward in Lynch’s early 1990s ABC series Twin Peaks.

“There goes the true Willy Wonka of filmmaking,” the actress said in a statement to Deadline on Thursday following Lynch’s death at age 78. “I feel like I got the golden ticket getting a chance to work with him. He will be greatly missed.”

The arrival of Boyle was declared in an October 1990 Rolling Stone cover she shared with fellow Twin Peaks actress Sherilynn Fenn and Mädchen Amick that heralded “The Women of Twin Peaks.”

Related: ‘Twin Peaks’ Star Kyle MacLachlan Remembers David Lynch: “He Understood That Questions Are The Drive That Make Us Who We Are”

Boyle’s Donna was the fierce, straight arrow in a Northwest town...

Since making his acting debut in 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," Nicolas Cage has gone on to amass an astounding filmography that has never stopped evolving. He's admittedly made some baffling choices as an actor, starring in the infamously terrible "Deadfall" (which has a zero rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and the 2019 dud "Grand Isle," whose flaws have more to do with its storytelling than Cage's performance as a haunted war veteran. Really, we would be here all day if I were to list the scores of middling-to-awful straight-to-video flicks Cage has starred in, yet the actor never, ever phones it in and shows up to every role with an intensity that is tough to match.

Being one of those actors who shines brighter than ever when given layered, intriguing roles to work with, Cage has delivered several unforgettable performances worth rooting for. For starters, we have the lesser-known...

Nicolas Cage is one of America’s greatest movie stars, and certainly its most distinctive one. His singular genius will be the subject of a retrospective festival at Metrograph, the wonderful independent movie theater in New York City.

IndieWire reports that “Nicolas Uncaged” will present 35mm showings of 10 of Cage’s iconic films: “Adaptation,” “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” “Con Air,” “Moonstruck,” “National Treasure,” “Pig,” “Red Rock West,” “Vampire’s Kiss,” “The Wicker Man,” and “Wild at Heart.”

“Heaped with praise and panegyrics as one of the finest screen actors of his generation, pilloried and parodied as an anything-for-a-paycheck hambone with a weakness for weird wigs and prostheses, Nicolas Cage is a one-man sideshow, a mixture of Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum, Lon Chaney, and a stick of TNT who takes back ‘serious thespian’ prestige whenever he wants to, dives into grindhouse material and Academy Award hopefuls with the same mad enthusiasm,...

Nicolas Cage’s status as a national treasure is being cemented by the Metrograph.

The New York City-based theater has announced a “Nicolas Uncaged” festival to honor the acclaimed star. The 10-film retrospective opens November 8 at Metrograph In Theater, and will feature 35mm showings of “Con Air,” “Moonstruck,” “The Wicker Man,” and “Wild at Heart.”

“Heaped with praise and panegyrics as one of the finest screen actors of his generation, pilloried and parodied as an anything-for-a-paycheck hambone with a weakness for weird wigs and prostheses, Nicolas Cage is a one-man sideshow, a mixture of Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum, Lon Chaney, and a stick of TNT who takes back ‘serious thespian’ prestige whenever he wants to, dives into grindhouse material and Academy Award hopefuls with the same mad enthusiasm, and never seems to be having anything less than a total blast in front of the camera,” the Metrograph press statement reads.

As Grimmfest 2024 comes to a close, one film that is set to leave a lasting impression is Blood Star, a raw and suspenseful desert noir that fits perfectly into the festival’s Fear on Four Wheels strand. Today, we’re talking to the film’s writer and director, Lawrence Jacomelli, whose gritty debut film is to premiere to UK audiences at this year’s festival. Blood Star is a high-octane thrill ride that blends the relentless cat-and-mouse tension of Red Rock West and Breakdown with an unflinching social commentary inspired by real-life injustices like the tragic cases of Sarah Everard and George Floyd. It features a chilling performance by John Schwab as the psychopathic sheriff, Bilstein, whose badge grants him unbridled power to terrorize the vulnerable, and Britni Camacho, whose portrayal of a resilient Latina petty thief showcases an indomitable spirit as she fights to survive.

Lawrence Jacomelli may be a first-time director,...

In Michael Samoski's 2021 drama "Pig," Nicolas Cage plays a quiet, bearded recluse named Rob Feld who lives in a remote woodland cabin with his unnamed pet pig. The pig is a skilled truffle forager, and Rob makes a living selling truffles to a restaurant supplier (Alex Wolff) who occasionally drives out to his cabin. Rob clearly has a dark past, but has seemingly found peace in the woods. One night, however, Rob is attacked, and his pig is stolen. Rob has to trek into nearby Portland to retrieve his animal friend, and, we learn, confront his past.

As the film progresses, we discover that Rob had unusual connections in the world of Portland's high-end restaurateurs, and that he participated in eatery-related underground fighting rings (!). He's also still in mourning over the death of his wife years before, which was the primary impetus driving Rob to become a recluse. More than anything,...

Nicolas Cage's 2024 independent horror movie Longlegs was a massive success, but was far from the actor's first venture into the genre, as his highest-rated horror performance was in a psychedelic dark fantasy that critics loved. Longlegs disturbed US audiences, becoming Neon's highest-grossing domestic release. The viral and popular horror, where Cage plays an erratic serial killer, amassed many positive reviews from critics, including an 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, an earlier Nicolas Cage horror movie eclipses Longlegs' impressive record.

Cage is no stranger to horror success, taking on uniquely terrifying roles and receiving praise for his contributions to the genre. Projects like Color Out of Space and Willy's Wonderland have demonstrated his versatility and ability to command the screen. However, while many Nic Cage horror projects have developed cult followings, two of these modern hits, Mandy and Longlegs, are in close competition to be labeled his biggest and best horror outings.

Blending noir elements with superhero genre could make Spider-Man Noir show the most unique superhero adaptation, much in the way Red Rock West merges genres. Nicolas Cage's range shines in the underrated film Red Rock West, showcasing his ability to mix serious and comedic moments. Noir's potential success could help shine light on Red Rock West in the future.

While fans anxiously await Nicolas Cage starring in the live-action television show, Spider-Man Noir, an underrated film of his from the 90s could be the perfect thing to watch in the meantime. Set in its own universe, the upcoming Marvel show will see Cage play a variant of Spider-Man Noir, following his performance as another version of the same character in the Sony film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Officially titled Noir, the upcoming series will be on MGM+ and Amazon Prime.

Noir has the chance to set itself apart...

Dennis Hopper was the Oscar-nominated performer who experienced many ups-and-downs throughout his career, with his off-screen antics often overshadowing his onscreen talent. Yet many of his movies have stood the test of time. Let’s take a look back at 15 of Hopper’s greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1936, Hopper made his movie debut at the age of 19 in “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955), where he became fast friends with James Dean. He had an even bigger role in “Giant” (1956), which would be Dean’s last film before his untimely death in 1955. Hopper struggled for several years trying to find his voice, making small appearances in such films as “Cool Hand Luke” (1967) and “True Grit”(1969).

He burst onto the scene with the counterculture phenomenon “Easy Rider” (1969), which he also directed and co-wrote (with co-star Peter Fonda and Terry Southern). The story of two bikers (Hopper and Fonda) traveling across...

Plot: A gym manager, Lou (Kristen Stewart), falls head-over-heels in love with a female bodybuilder, Jackie (Katy O’Brian). But, their bliss is short-lived, as the two end up getting tangled up with Lou’s criminal father (Ed Harris).

Review: Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding is a dark, stylized, ultra-mean-spirited neo-noir. It skates on the edge of perhaps being a little too self-aware for its good in the surreal finale, but it’s still a very entertaining and twisty thriller.

Kristen Stewart is perfectly cast as the laconic noir anti-hero who hooks up now and then with a girl (Anna Baryshnikov), she can’t stand but otherwise leads a lonely life with her cat. Being set in 1989, the constantly smoking Lou is trying to quit with books on tape that have little to no effect, only for her life to be blown up when she sets her eyes on Katy...

Nicolas Cage's new movie Dream Scenario receives one of the highest Rotten Tomatoes scores of his career, currently standing at 90% on 105 reviews. The film showcases Cage's strong performance, whimsical premise, and comedic quality, reminiscent of his acclaimed film Adaptation. Dream Scenario saves Cage's otherwise lackluster 2023, outperforming his other films of the year by a wide margin and potentially ranking among his best work.

Nicolas Cage’s new movie Dream Scenario lands one of the highest Rotten Tomatoes scores of the actor’s 42-year career. The prolific Cage has already enjoyed an eclectic 2023, starring in the somber Western The Old Way, the outrageous horror-comedy Renfield, the pulse-pounding thriller Sympathy for the Devil and the wacky action movie The Retirement Plan. In his fifth film of the year, the star plays a biology professor who begins mysteriously appearing in the dreams of other people, becoming an unlikely celebrity as a result of the bizarre phenomenon.

Lists are a time-honored tradition in the world of cinema. Best 100 this, Top 10 that. As such, every now and then, actors are asked to name their favorite performances. This week, the prolific Nicolas Cage, who has more than 200 movies to his credit, was tasked with just that.

While appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to promote Renfield, the host asked Nicolas Cage for his top five, well, Nicolas Cage movies. It didn’t take long for Cage to rattle off his picks. And now, in no particular order: Pig (2021), Mandy (2018), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009), and Joe (2013).

As you can see, for the most part, Nicolas Cage picked movies from the more recent phase of his career, with three coming from the last decade. Colbert, meanwhile, cited 1997’s Face/Off as a personal favorite, prompting Cage to declare, “Oh, I like that one a lot!

Pig (2021).At the end of 2021, Nicolas Cage finally renounced the title of actor, preferring it to the more classical and, in many ways, liberating term of the thespian.1 This transition puts a lot in its place: the polyphonic structure of Cage's acting method, his unorthodox approach to choosing films, and the constant incorporation of his personality into them. A casual glance at the recent filmography of the "once-great artist" reveals that the only key detail in it is Cage himself, mired in memes and internet tribute, but continuing to tell his story through the guises of the characters he plays.It is customary in Hollywood to treat the acting profession with a frightening seriousness that Cage was always completely devoid of. The actor's dissimilarity to his older contemporaries, heavily influenced by the Lee Strasberg school of the Method, was bound to play a cruel trick on him sooner or later.

Welcome to The B-Side, from The Film Stage. Here we talk about movie stars! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.

Have you ever been dragged onto the sidewalk and beaten ‘til you’ve Pissed Blood?! No? Well, today we go long on somebody who has made a career out of losing his shit: Nicolas Cage! This is the first episode to come out of our recent slew of listener-voted polls on Twitter. Conor and I are joined by Cory Everett, good friend, creator of Cinephile: A Card Game and Cinephile Game Night for this episode two long years in the making.

Our B-Sides today include: Red Rock West, Deadfall, Guarding Tess, and Kiss of Death. Settle in for a long one as Conor, Cory, and I focus in on Cage’s career between his breakout performance in...

Nicolas Cage is coming to Netflix for a new comedy series that explores the origins of swear words.

History of Swear Words is hosted by Oscar® and Golden Globe® winner Nicolas Cage.

"An education in expletives: the history lesson you didn’t know you needed," reads the logline from Netflix, which adds:

History of Swear Words, hosted by Nicolas Cage, is a loud and proudly profane series that explores the origins, pop culture-usage, science and cultural impact of curse words.

Through interviews with experts in etymology, pop culture, historians and entertainers, the six-episode series dives into the origins of “F**k”, “Sh*t”, “B*tch”, “D**k”, “Pu**y”, and “Damn”.

Guest stars in the series of specials include Joel Kim Booster, DeRay Davis, Open Mike Eagle, Nikki Glaser, Patti Harrison, London Hughes, Jim Jefferies, Zainab Johnson, Nick Offerman, Sarah Silverman, Baron Vaughn, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.

They will be...

Scott Teems’ “The Quarry” is a sun-baked neo-noir in the grand tradition of “Blood Simple” and “Red Rock West,” in which a small, dusty town conceals dark secrets and buried bodies. Pictures like these aren’t too hard to come by, particularly in the realm of video-on-demand. What makes “The Quarry” special is that it’s essentially a two-hander for Shea Whigham and Michael Shannon.

Continue reading ‘The Quarry’ Is An Entertaining Showcase For Michael Shannon & Shea Whigham [Review] at The Playlist.

Dennis Hopper would’ve celebrated his 83rd birthday on May 17, 2019. The Oscar-nominated performer experienced many ups-and-downs throughout his career, with his off-screen antics often overshadowing his onscreen talent. Yet many of his movies have stood the test of time. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of Hopper’s greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1936, Hopper made his movie debut at the age of 19 in “Rebel Without a Cause” (1955), where he became fast friends with James Dean. He had an even bigger role in “Giant” (1956), which would be Dean’s last film before his untimely death in 1955. Hopper struggled for several years trying to find his voice, making small appearances in such films as “Cool Hand Luke” (1967) and “True Grit”(1969).

SEERock Hudson movies: 12 greatest films ranked worst to best

He burst onto the scene with the counterculture phenomenon “Easy Rider” (1969), which he also...

At this stage in the game, with all the straight-to-vod dreck to pay the bills, Nicolas Cage‘s career is a bit of a joke to most audiences. But if so, that’s a shame, because Cage is the Oscar-winning actor gave us thrilling, gonzo performances in classics like “Adaptation,” “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Raising Arizona,” “Wild At Heart,” and “Red Rock West,” just to name a few.

A gloriously repellent performance by M Emmet Walsh is one of many highlights of this thriller – a drum-tight gem that launched a film-making phenomenon

The Coen brothers’ debut from 1984 is this superb, slightly atypical classic (which got a little-known and rather baffling Chinese-language remake from Zhang Yimou in 2009 entitled A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop). The original is now getting a rerelease: a gripping, drum-tight noir masterpiece to compare with Touch of Evil.

Apart from everything else, it has one of the most disturbing nightmare scenes I have ever sat through. Yet for all the mastery with which it is written and planned out, right down to the spectacular final line and the eerie brilliance of the dying man’s point of view, Blood Simple does not hint – or does so only indirectly – at the more prolix wit, the verbal, visual riffing and offbeat wackiness of the Coens’ later gems.

While we certainly would celebrate if he mounted a proper comeback, we would be lying if we said that the current i-will-do-any-dodgy-b-movie-so-long-as-you-pay-me phase of Nic Cage wasn’t our second-favorite Nic Cage phase. Sure, it doesn’t match up to the truly great late 80s/early 90s run from “Birdy” and “Raising Arizona” through to “Red Rock West,” but we’d arguably take it over the Bruckheimer Cage of the 90s, or the still-famous-but-making-crap Cage of the 00s.

Continue reading Nic Cage To Fight A Jaguar On A Boat In ‘Primal’ at The Playlist.

An honest Cage gets caught up in an offbeat thriller.“Adios, Red Rock.”

As we celebrate Texas Week here at Fsr I knew I wanted to make sure this week’s Tao of Cage had a little Texas twang. Unfortunately I do very little planning in advance and hardly ever think things through. Last week I wrote about Joe, which would have been the perfect choice for Texas Week. Joe isn’t just Nicolas Cage’s most Texas movie but I do believe it’s his only movie that actually takes place in Texas. Go figure.

There may not be another Cage movie that take place in Texas but in 1992 Cage did play a drifter from Texas. This week we’re talking Red Rock West!

In this offbeat thriller Cage stars as Michael Williams, a former Marine from Odessa now looking for work in Wyoming. A friend gives him a tip about a job opportunity on an...

Exclusive: Proving yet again that the Black List has become a hot bed for writers looking to sell their scripts, Roland Emmerich’s Centropolis Entertainment just scooped up the spec Scarletville from screenwriter Jason Young. The spec hit the Black List for a nanosecond, was read and then bought outright by Centropolis. Described as a thriller in the vein of Blood Simple or Red Rock West, the edge-of-your-seat story’s logline: “When a deadly criminal shows up in the…...

Mark Harrison Sep 13, 2016

Before he hit big with Star Wars and Star Trek, Jj Abrams was penning films such as Forever Young, Regarding Henry and Armageddon...

Jj Abrams is one of the most powerful people in Hollywood right now. Over his career in the movies, he's written, directed, produced, acted and played a wicked keyboard solo on Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions, and through his production company Bad Robot, his name is counted among the credits of massive franchises like Cloverfield, Mission: Impossible, Star Trek and of course Star Wars. He's more of a household name than most filmmakers of his generation and we sometimes wish we wanted anything as much as he wants that Steven Spielberg status.

You can't blame him when you hear about his first paid job in the film industry. Returning a bunch of Spielberg's personal super-8 home movies that he discovered after his...

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They’ve made some of the best thrillers of the past six years. We list some of the best modern thriller directors currently working...

Director Guillermo del Toro once described suspense as being about the withholding of information: either a character knows something the audience doesn’t know, or the audience knows something the character doesn’t. That’s a deliciously simple way of describing something that some filmmakers often find difficult to achieve: keeping viewers on the edges of their seats.

The best thrillers leave us scanning the screen with anticipation. They invite us to guess what happens next, but then delight in thwarting expectations. We can all name the great thriller filmmakers of the past - Alfred Hitchcock, Carol Reed, Brian De Palma - but what about the current crop of directors? Here’s our pick of the filmmakers who’ve made some great modern thrillers over the past six years - that is, between the year 2010 and the present.

Jeremy Saulnier - Blue Ruin, Green Room

To think there was once a time when Jeremy Saulnier was seriously quitting the film business.

“To be honest," Saulner told us back in 2014, “Macon and I had really given up on our quest to break into the industry and become legitimate filmmakers. So what we were trying to do with Blue Ruin was archive our 20 year arc and bring it to a close. Really just revisit our stomping grounds and use locations that were near and dear to us and build a narrative out of that.”

Maybe this personal touch explains at least partly why Blue Ruin wound up getting so much attention in Cannes in 2013, signalling not the end of Saulnier and his star Macon Blair’s career, but a brand new chapter. But then again, there’s more than just hand-crafted intimacy in Saulnier’s revenge tale; there’s also its lean, minimal storytelling and the brilliance of its characterisation. Blue Ruin is such an effective thriller because its protagonist is so atypical: sad-eyed, inexperienced with guns, somewhat soft around the edges, Macon Blair’s central character is far from your typical righteous avenger.

Green Room, which emerged in the UK this year, explores a similar clash between very ordinary people and extraordinary violence. A young punk band shout about anarchy and aggression on stage, but they quickly find themselves out of their depth when they’re cornered by a group of bloodthirsty neo-Nazis. In Saulnier’s films, grubby, unseemly locations are matched by often beautiful locked-off shots. Familiar thriller trappings are contrasted by twists of fortune that are often shocking.

Denis Villeneuve - Sicario, Prisoners

Here’s one of those directors who can pack an overwhelming sense of dread in a single image: in Sicario, his searing drug-war thriller from last year, it was the sight of tiny specks of dust falling in the light scything through a window. That single shot proved to be the calm before the storm, as Villeneuve unleashed a salvo of blood-curdling events: an attempted FBI raid on a building gone horribly awry. And this, I think, is the brilliance of Villeneuve’s direction, and why he’s so good at directing thrillers like Sicario or 2013’s superb Prisoners - he understands the rhythm of storytelling, and how scenes of quiet can generate almost unbearable tension.

Another case in point: the highway sequence in Sicario, where Emily Blunt’s FBI agent is stuck in a traffic jam outside one of the most violent cities in the world. Villeneueve makes us feel the stifling heat and the claustrophobia; something nasty’s going to happen, we know that - but it’s the sense of anticipation which makes for such an unforgettable scene.

Prisoners hews closely to the template of a modern mystery thriller, but it’s once again enriched by Villeneuve’s expert pacing and the performances he gets out of his actors. Hugh Jackman’s seldom been better as a father on the hunt for his missing child, while Jake Gyllenhaal mesmerises as a cop scarred by his own private traumas.

Lynne Ramsay - We Need To Talk About Kevin

Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin may be the most effective psychological thriller of recent years. About the difficult relationship between a mother (Tilda Swinton) and her distant, possibly sociopathic son (Ezra Miller), Ramsay’s film is masterfully told from beginning to end - which is impressive, given that the source novel by Lionel Shriver is told via a series of letters. Ramsay takes the raw material from the book and crafts something cinematic and highly disturbing: a study of guilt, sorrow and recrimination. Tension bubbles even in casual conversations around the dinner table. Miller is an eerie, cold-eyed blank. Swinton is peerless. One scene, in which Swinton’s mother comes home in the dead of night, is unforgettable. Here’s hoping Ramsay returns with another feature film very soon.

Morten Tyldum - Headhunters

All kinds of thrillers have emerged from Scandinavia over the past few years, whether on the large or small screen or in book form. Morten Tyldum’s Headhunters is among the very best of them. The fast-paced and deliriously funny story of an art thief who steals a painting from the wrong guy, Headhunters launched Tyldum on an international stage - Alan Turing drama The Imitation Game followed, and the Sony sci-fi film Passengers is up next. It isn’t hard to see why, either: Headhunters shows off Tyldum’s mastery of pace and tone, as his pulp tale hurtles from intense chase scenes to laugh-out-loud black comedy.

Joel Edgerton - The Gift

Granted, Joel Edgerton’s better known as an actor, having turned in some superb performances in the likes of Warrior, Zero Dark Thirty and Warror. But with a single film - The Gift, which he wrote, directed, produced and starred in - Edgerton established himself as a thriller filmmaker of real promise. About a successful, happily married couple whose lives are greatly affected by an old face from the husband’s past, The Gift is an engrossing, unsettling movie with superb performances from Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall as well as Edgerton.

A riff on the ‘killer in our midst’ thrillers of the 80s and 90s - The Stepfather, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and so on - The Gift is all the more effective because of its restraint. We’re never quite sure who the villain of the piece is, at least at first - and Edgerton’s use of the camera leaves us wrong-footed at every turn. The world arguably needs more thrillers from Joel Edgerton.

If you haven’t seen The Gift yet, we’d urge you to track it down.

David Michod - Animal Kingdom

The criminals at play in this true-life crime thriller are all the more chilling because they’re so mundane - a bunch of low-level thieves, murderers and gangsters who prowl around the rougher parts of Melbourne, Australia. Writer-director David Michod spent years developing Animal Kingdom, and it was worth the effort: it’s an intense, engrossing film, for sure, but it’s also a believable glimpse of the worst of human nature. Ben Mendelsohn and Jacki Weaver play villains of different kinds; the latter a manipulative grandmother who looks over her brood of criminals, the former a spiteful thief. Crafting moments of incredible tension from simple exchanges, Michod launched himself as a formidable talent with this feature debut.

Ben Affleck - The Town, Argo

Affleck’s period drama-thriller Argo won all kinds of awards, but we’d argue his earlier thrillers were equally well made. Gone Baby Gone was a confident debut and an economical adaptation of Dennis LeHane’s novel. The Town, released in 2010, was a heist thriller that made the most of its Boston setting. One of its key scenes - a bank robbery in which the thieves wear a range of bizarre outfits, including a nun’s habit - is masterfully staged. With Affleck capable of teasing out great performances from his actors and staging effective set-pieces, it’s hardly surprising he’s so heavily involved in making at least one Batman movie for Warner - as well as playing the hero behind the mask.

Anton Corbijn - The American, A Most Wanted Man

The quiet, almost meditative tone of Anton Corbijn’s movies mean they aren’t necessarily to everyone’s taste, but they’re visually arresting and almost seductive in their rhythm and attention to detail. Already a celebrated photographer, Corbijn successfully crossed over into filmmaking with Control, an exquisitely-made drama about Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis. Corbijn took a markedly different direction with The American, a thriller about an ageing contract killer (George Clooney) who hides out in a small Italian town west of Rome. Inevitably, trouble eventually comes calling.

Corbijn’s direction remains gripping because he doesn’t give us huge action scenes to puncture the tension. We can sense the capacity for violence coiled up beneath the hitman’s calm exterior, and Corbijn makes sure we only see rare flashes of that toughness - right up until the superbly-staged climax.

A Most Wanted Man, based on the novel by John le Carre, is a similarly astute study of an isolated yet fascinating character - in this instance, the world-weary German intelligence agent Gunther Bachmann, brilliantly played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Tragically, the film proved to be one of the last before Hoffman’s death in 2014.

Paul Greengrass - Green Zone, Captain Phillips

Mention Greengrass’ name, and the director’s frequent use of handheld cameras might immediately spring to mind. But time and again, Greengrass has proved a master of his own personal approach - you only have to look at the muddled, migraine-inducing films of his imitators to see how good a director Greengrass is. Part of the filmmakers’ visual language rather than a gimmick, Greengrass’ camera placement puts the viewer in the middle of the story, whether it’s an amnesiac agent on the run (his Bourne films) or on a hijacked aircraft (the harrowing United 93). While not a huge hit, Green Zone was an intense and intelligent thriller set in occupied Iraq. The acclaimed Captain Phillips, meanwhile, was a perfect showcase for Greengrass’ ability to fuse realism and suspense; the true story of a merchant vessel hijacked by Somali pirates, it is, to quote Greengrass himself, “a contemporary crime story.”

John Hillcoat - Lawless, Triple 9

We can’t help thinking that, with a better marketing push behind it, Triple 9 could have been a much bigger hit when it appeared in cinemas earlier this year. It has a great cast - Chiwetel Ejiofor, Norman Reedus, Anthony Mackie and Aaron Paul as a group of seasoned thieves, Kate Winslet cast against type as a gangland boss - and its heist plot rattles along like an express train.

Hillcoat seems to have the western genre pulsing through his veins, and he excels at creating worlds that are desolate and all-enveloping, whether his subjects are period pieces (The Proposition, Lawless) or post-apocalyptic dramas (The Road). Triple 9 sees Hillcoat make an urban western that is both classic noir and entirely contemporary; his use of real cops and residents around the film’s Atlanta location give his heightened story a grounding that is believable in the moment. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the scene in which Casey Affleck’s cop breaches a building while hunkered down behind a bullet-proof shield. Hillcoat places us right there in the scene with Affleck and the cops sneaking into the building behind him; we sense the claustrophobia and vulnerability.

Hillcoat explained to us in February that this sequence wasn’t initially written this way in the original script; it changed when the director and his team discovered how real-world cops protect themselves in real-world situations. In Triple 9, research and great filmmaking combine to make an unforgettably intense thriller.

Jim Mickel - Cold In July

Seemingly inspired by such neo-Noir thrillers as Red Rock West and Blood Simple, 2014‘s Cold In July is a genre gem from director Jim Mickle (Stake Land, We Are What We Are). Michael C Hall plays an ordinary guy in 80s America who shoots an intruder who breaks into his home, and becomes drawn into a moody conspiracy that takes in crooked cops, porn and a private eye (who's also keen pig-rearer) played by Don Johnson. Constantly shifting between tones, Mickel’s thriller refuses to stick to genre expectations. In one scene, after Hall shoots the burglar dead, Mickel’s camera lingers over the protagonist as he cleans up the blood and glass. It’s touches like these that make Cold In July far more than a typical thriller.

Mickel’s teaming up with Sylvester Stallone next; we’re intrigued to see what that partnership produces.

Martin Scorsese - Shutter Island

As a filmmaker, Scorsese needs no introduction. As a director of thrillers, he’s in a class of his own: from Taxi Driver via the febrile remake of Cape Fear to the sorely underrated Bringing Out The Dead, his films are full of suspense and the threat of violence. Shutter Island, based on the Dennis LeHane novel of the same name, saw Scorsese plunge eagerly into neo-noir territory. A murder mystery set in a mental institution on the titular Shutter Island, its atmosphere is thick with menace. Like a combination of Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man and Adrian Lyne’s cult classic Jacob’s Ladder, Shutter Island’s one of those stories where we never know who we can trust - even the protagonist, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

David Fincher - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl

After the trial by fire that was Alien 3, David Fincher found his footing in the 90s with such hits as Seven and The Game. In an era where thrillers were in much greater abundance, from the middling to the very good, Seven in particular stood out as a genre classic: smartly written, disturbing, repulsive and yet captivating to look at all at once. Fincher’s affinity for weaving atmospheric thrillers continued into the 2010s, first with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a superb retelling of Stieg Larsson’s book which didn’t quite find the appreciative audience deserved, and Gone Girl, an even better movie which - thankfully - became a hit.

Based on Gillian Flynn’s novel (and adapted by the author herself), Gone Girl is both a gripping thriller and a thoroughly twisted relationship drama. Fincher’s mastery of the genre is all here: his millimetre-perfect composition, seamless touches of CGI and subtle yet effective uses of colour and shadow. While not a straight-up masterpiece like the period thriller Zodiac, Gone Girl is still a glossy, smart and blackly funny yarn in the Hitchcock tradition. If there’s one master of the modern thriller currently working, it has to be Fincher.

See related John Hillcoat interview: Triple 9, crime, fear of comic geniuses Jim Mickle interview: Cold In July, thrillers, Argento Jeremy Saulnier interview: Green Room, John Carpenter Jeremy Saulnier interview: making Blue Ruin & good thrillers Denis Villeneuve interview: Sicario, Kurosawa, sci-fi, ugly poetry Morten Tyldum interview: The Imitation Game, Cumberbatch, Headhunters Paul Greengrass interview: Captain Phillips & crime stories Movies Feature Ryan Lambie thrillers 15 Jun 2016 - 06:11 Cold In July Triple 9 Shutter Island Gone Girl David Fincher Martin Scorsese John Hillcoat Directors thrillers movies...

A gleeful throwback to a genre that unfortunately jumped the shark years ago, Detour harkens back to the ’90s noir that ultimately met its death with one too many Quentin Tarantino knock-offs. Detour is not that. It’s instead a playful shape-shifter (using a split-screen device) that offers a slight element of misdirection to its wild, winding road of unexpected encounters, moral decisions, and a portrait of white-trash Americana. This is lurid film noir at its best.

Thrust into this world is law student Harper (Tye Sheridan), a nice rich kid whose mother lies on her deathbed. He theorizes that his stepfather, Vincent (Stephen Moyer), is responsible for a car crash that’s left her on life support. He’s an architect who frequently travels from California to Vegas “for work” and first devises a plan to get him busted at the airport. In a moment of desperation, he shoots...

The Oscar-winning actor is attached to star in Vengeance: A Love Story and will direct the project.

Hannibal Classics serves as sales agent and Patriot Pictures CEO Michael Mendelsohn produces the story about a detective on the case of four meth addicts charged with the rape of a young woman.

Production is scheduled for April 4 in Atlanta, Georgia.

“I’m excited to work on Vengeance: A Love Story and bring Joyce Carol Oates’ bittersweet novel to the screen,” said Cage.

“Storytelling has always been my passion and I’m honoured to work with this talented team to tell a tale of the suffering too many women have endured.”

John Mankiewicz adapted the screenplay to Oates’ novel, Rape: A Love Story.

Harold Becker and Mike Nilon are executive producers alongside Hannibal’s Richard Rionda Del Castro

“I love working with Nicolas Cage. He is a scholar, gentleman, and a talented actor. Delighted to work...

"Red Rock West" (1994) "Red Rock West" takes us back to a time when Nicolas Cage was a great, risk-taking actor. Director John Dahl had the misfortune of having both "Red Rock West" and "The Last Seduction" get troubled releases in 1993/1994. "The Last Seduction" had its debut on HBO and thus was ineligible for the Oscars, which essentially robbed Linda Fiorentino of a much deserved nomination (the film did, however, get a limited theatrical run after its HBO debut). "Red Rock West" was Dahl's indisputably great straight-to-video movie. When Cage's Mike enters a mysterious small town and is mistaken for a hitman, he takes the money and runs before the kill. Bad idea, Mixing surreal sequences with nasty violence, Dahl is a master at work here, infusing his film with clever noir relics and an abundance of plot twists. Best of all is Dennis Hopper, who basically does what Dennis Hopper does best: Play a homicidal.

Marvel and Sony made headlines recently when they tapped little-known helmer Jon Watts to direct the next Spider-Man movie, so it’s unfortunately inevitable that the bulk of attention afforded to Watts’ sophomore feature, indie thriller Cop Car (his first was under-the-radar horror Clown), will take the form of one simple question: what did the studios see in the director that they didn’t in more accomplished contenders like Warm Bodies‘ Jonathan Levine?

We may never know for certain what specifically landed Watts the gig, but Cop Car‘s killer opening scene is a pretty strong bet. Marvel and Sony have stated their intentions to skew young with this wall-crawler, imparting the incredible emotional stakes of teen life without turning the pic into a world-in-peril superhero movie. And in a single scene in Cop Car, Watt astutely captures that heady feeling of youth we can all remember: of being young,...

A new year of films may beckon, but there are lots of movies from 2014 you may have missed. Here's a list of 2014's most underappreciated...

There was no shortage of magnificent films in 2014 of every kind, from the expensive and explosive to the low-key and experimental. But it's a sad fact of life that not all movies do as well as they should, either because of poor distribution or simply because they'd been released at the same time as something much bigger and more star-laden.

While the list below is by no means an exhaustive one - there are plenty of great films from 2014 that we're still getting around to seeing - it's our attempt to highlight a few fine pieces of work that didn't get quite as much love as they deserved.

So without further ado - and in no particular order - we'll start with a stunning...

We’ve got the new trailer for Texas-based neo-noir flick Bad Turn Worse (formerly known as We Gotta Get Out of This Place), and if you like your crime tales baked to perfection in the Lone Star state’s blistering heat, we think you’re gonna like this new clip. The film, which was picked up by Starz and features performances from Jeremy Allen White, Logan Huffman, Mackenzie Davis and Mark Pellegrino -- looks to be a Southern-fried crime thriller in the vein of Red Rock West. The clip is quick to point out all the critical praise that’s been heaped on the film since its 2013 Toronto International Film Fest debut, and then backs it all up with a mesmerizing preview of what's to come when the feature hits theaters and VOD on November 14. Here’s...

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The Texas-set neo-noir formerly known as We Gotta Get Out Of This Place has ponied up its first trailer as Starz Digital ramps up for a November 14 release. Jeremy Allen White (Shameless), Mackenzie Davis (Halt And Catch Fire) and Logan Huffman (V) star in Bad Turn Worse as small-town youngsters who blow stolen cash on a weekend of partying. Unfortunately, the sociopath they stole from (Lost‘s Mark Pellegrino) answers to an even scarier boss (William Devane), whose riches the kids are forced to heist in order to repay their debt.

Zeke and Simon Hawkins directed from a script by Dutch Southern and shot the pic on location in Texas cotton country. After it debuted at Tiff 2013, Starz acquired U.S. and Canada rights and set a limited theatrical/digital release plan. That strategy might work out well for Starz; between the film’s festival premiere and now, more indies...

Director Jim Mickle is beginning to form a reputation for himself, in constantly producing unique, creative productions, that can’t be confined to any one genre. Following on from We Are What Are, his latest, Cold in July, also epitomises this fact – though sadly such ingenuity can make his films somewhat difficult to sell to financiers.

“The fact it wasn’t a horror film made it tough,” he explained. “You can bend the rules a little more easily in horror and fans are more accepting, and financiers are a little more accepting. This is a little tougher because it had a foot in the horror genre, but also had a foot in so many other spots that people didn’t want to wholesale finance the thing because of that. There were so many years being so frustrated about this.”

Cold in July, based on Joe R. Lansdale’s eponymous novel,...

We talk to director Jim Mickle about his latest film Cold In July, the secret of suspense and his influences, from the Coens to Argento...

Interview

Where Hollywood appears to have largely abandoned the thriller genre in favour of ever bigger action adventures and sequels, indie filmmakers have stepped in to fill the breach. Earlier this year saw the release of Jeremy Saulnier's quirky low-budget genre piece Blue Ruin - a satisfyingly grisly thriller with a great everyman performance from Macon Blair.

This Friday sees the UK release of Cold In July, the latest film from director Jim Mickle. It stars Dexter's Michael C Hall as Richard, an ordinary family man thrown into a wild and unpredictable criminal underworld after shooting a mysterious intruder in his living room one night.

Adapted from Joe Landsdale's novel of the same name, Cold In July initially slips into the southern neo-noir subgenre,...

Stake Land director Jim Mickle serves up a twisty neo-noir thriller. Here's Ryan's review of the murky, entertaining Cold In July...

There’s a deliciously slippery quality to Cold In July, a neo-noir thriller from director Jim Mickle (Stake Land, We Are What We Are). Set in late-80s east Texas, Mickle’s movie contains distinct shades of such films as Blood Simple, Red Rock West and Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear remake, but at the same time, flatly refuses to cleave to genre expectations.

Dexter’s Michael C Hall stars as Richard, a quiet, mild-mannered family man who shoots an intruder in his living room one sultry summer night. Shaken to the core by the experience, Richard’s once humdrum life is disrupted further by the appearance of the intruder’s father, Russel (Sam Shepard), who manages to lace even the most softly-spoken utterance with a thread of barely-concealed menace.

Washington, May 12: Film and Tv composer William Patrick Olvis, who was the son of actor and opera singer William Edward Olvis, passed away on May 6 in Malibu, California, after having lost his battle with throat cancer, according to reports.

Throughout his career, William Patrick composed the music for several movies and TV shows, which included 'Red Rock West,' 'Dr. Quinn,' 'Medicine Woman' and 'El Diablo,' Contactmusic reported.

William Patrick was also the winner of four most performed underscore awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (Ascap) in 1995, 1997, 1998 and 1999. (Ani)...

Dwight Yoakam is going Under the Dome.

In fact, his character has been there the entire time! In season two of CBS’ summer breakout drama, the actor-musician will play Lyle Chumley, who runs the Chester’s Mill’s barbershop. We’re told Chumley “has a complicated history with Big Jim — having once been romantically linked with his dead wife, Pauline. Lyle also has a mysterious connection to the Dome, and very well may know the answer to its origins.”

Yoakam will appear in multiple episodes as a recurring guest star in season 2, which gets underway June 30. The Grammy-winning Kentucky native...

The Overlooked Hotel, having found a spare room for Stephen Tobolowsky, now welcomes another deserving guest, the late, great Jt Walsh. You know, that really talented guy from that thing you really like.

Jt Walsh, in many ways the definitive supporting character actor, passed away suddenly in 1998. He succumbed to a heart attack at the relatively tender age of 54, but left behind a quite astonishingly varied and accomplished body of work, despite never being nominated for anything other than a Primetime Emmy and a couple of SAG cast awards. If nothing else, this amply demonstrates that far too often, real talent goes unrewarded and although (of course) not every0ne can be lavished with awards and in any given year the same performance is likely to hoover up every award going, the fact that Walsh never received an Oscar, Golden Globe or SAG award (or even a solo nomination) is a glaring omission.

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: March 18, 2014

Price: DVD $24.98, Blu-ray $34.98

Studio: Cohen Media

David Lyons and Emma Booth make their way across the outback in Swerve.

The 2011 Australian thriller Swerve starring Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty), Emma Booth (Parker) and David Lyons (Eat Pray Love) is a contemporary entry in the classic film noir genre.

While driving across the Outback to a job interview, Colin (Lyons) witnesses a two-car crash that leaves one driver decapitated. The good-hearted Colin pulls a beautiful and mysterious young woman, Jina (Booth), from the wreckage, along with a suitcase full of money. But soon, he becomes entangled with a crooked local cop (Clarke) – who happens to be the very jealous husband of Jina – as well a murderous thug (Travis McMahon, Cactus) who is after the cash. Yikes.

Written and directed by Aussie filmmaker Craig Lahiff, Swerve is premiering on disc and on VOD in the U.S.

Nicolas Cage is an acting veteran who has appeared in more than 70 films, winning a Best Actor Academy Award for his searing portrayal of a writer drinking himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas. He’s also famous for turning in wildly over-the-top, hammed to the hilt performances without breaking a sweat. His hardcore fans praise his best films (Adaptation, Red Rock West, Bringing Out The Dead) even as they adore his arguably terrible ones (Gone in Sixty Seconds, Drive Angry, The Wicker Man) just because he’s Nic Cage.

Still, with the exception of 2013′s successful animated feature The Croods – in which he voiced the patriarch of a family of cave-dwellers – his last real hit would be 2010′s Kick-Ass, and his last critically celebrated turn might date back to 2006′s World Trade Center. For the last few years Cage’s output has mainly consisted of a series ...

Click to...

Justified, Season 5, Episode 2: “The Kids Aren’t All Right”

Written by Dave Andron

Directed by Bill Johnson

Airs Tuesdays at 10pm Et on FX -

In case you missed the news, FX’s John Landgraf announced that Justified will end next year with its sixth season. This lines up with what Graham Yost and Timothy Olyphant have been saying for years about the series having a natural endpoint that wasn’t too far into the future, but today that became official. Assuming it gets a standard episode order for 2015, Justified has 24 episodes remaining after this one, “The Kids Aren’t All Right.”

While Landgraf admitted that he’d be perfectly happy to keep the show around in perpetuity, he deferred to the wishes of the creatives, and it’s hard to fault them. After all, Justified, for its astounding guest casting and ever-expanding geographical span, is ultimately about Raylan...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 5 Dec 2013 - 06:54

Our voyage through history's underappreciated films arrives at the year 2001, and a vintage year for lesser-seen gems...

Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke may have seen 2001 as the year we'd head off to meet alien intelligences in the depths of space, but in reality, its cinematic landscape was dominated by fantasy rather than extra-terrestrials. Rowling and Tolkien dominated the box office, with Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone and The Fellowship Of The Ring earning almost $1bn each, while Monsters, Inc and Shrek thrilled old and young audiences alike.

At the other end of the spectrum of success, 2001 was such a vintage year for movies that we had to whittle our usual selection of 25 films down from an initial selection of more than 40. This is why the decision was made - with heavy heart - to exclude some of our favourite films,...

Den Of Geek Nov 10, 2016

Need some ideas for films to watch, that you might just have overlooked? We've got, er, one or 250...

A few years back, we went year-by-year through the 1990s to try and shine some light on films in the decade that otherwise don't seem to get talked about as much as they should. Granted, we missed a few that we should have included, but our aim when we started was to salute lots and lots of films that didn't top the blockbuster charts, or walk off with lots of Oscars.

Here then, all in one place, are the links to the ten individual pieces. And that makes 250 films in all. Many thanks for your support of this particular project, and we hope you've found it of some interest. Now? We're going to dig out our DVD of Red Rock West to watch again...

The top 20 underappreciated films...

Feature Den Of Geek 22 Nov 2013 - 06:22

Need some ideas for films to watch, that you might just have overlooked? We've got, er, one or two...

Over the past few weeks, we've been going year-by-year through the 1990s to try and shine some light on films in the decade that otherwise don't seem to get talked about as much as they should. Granted, we've missed a few that we should have included, but our aim when we started this was to salute lots and lots of films that didn't top the blockbuster charts, or walk off with lots of Oscars.

Here then, all in one place, are the links to the ten individual pieces. And that makes 250 films in all. Many thanks for your support of this particular project, and we hope you've found it of some interest. Now? We're going to dig out our DVD of Red Rock West to watch again.

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 21 Nov 2013 - 05:51

The underappreciated films of 1999 are the focus in our last list of 90s overlooked greats...

The year 1999 was a significant year for film in many ways. Apart from being the year that George Lucas began his Star Wars prequels with The Phantom Menace, it also saw the release of The Blair Witch Project, a horror film which became one of the first to use the internet as a marketing tool, resulting in a massive hit. The Matrix ushered in a new age of special effects filmmaking, arguably paving the way for the superhero blockbusters crowding into multiplexes today.

Mainly, though, 1999 was simply a brilliant year for film. Justly lauded movies like Fight Club, The Green Mile and Eyes Wide Shut aside, there were a huge number of films that didn't get the critical or financial success they deserved - so many,...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 14 Nov 2013 - 06:19

The overlooked greats of the year 1998 come under the spotlight in our list of its 25 underappreciated movies...

Dominated as it was by the financial success of two giant killer asteroid movies, gross-out comedy hit There's Something About Mary and Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, 1998 proved to be an extraordinary year for cinema.

Okay, so history doesn't look back too fondly on Roland Emmerich's mishandled Godzilla remake, and Lethal Weapon 4 was hardly the best buddy-cop flick ever made, despite its handsome profit. But search outside the top-10 grossing films of that year, and you'll find all kinds of spectacular modern classics: Peter Weir's wonderful The Truman Show, John Frankenheimer's rock-solid thriller Ronin, and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line.

Then there was The Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers' sublime comedy that has since become a deserved and oft-quoted cult favourite.

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 31 Oct 2013 - 07:01

We train our sights on the year 1996, and the 25 underappreciated films it has to offer...

Independence Day managed to revive both the alien invasion movie and the disaster flick in 1996, and just about every other mainstream picture released that year lived in its saucer-shaped shadow.

Yet beyond the aerial battles of Independence Day, the flying cows in Twister, and the high-wire antics of Tom Cruise in Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible, there sat an entire library of lesser-known and underappreciated movies.

As part of our attempts to highlight the unsung greats of the 90s, here's our selection of 25 such films from 1996 - the year chess champion Garry Kasparov lost to the might of the computer Deep Blue, and the year comedy star Jim Carrey starred in an unexpectedly dark tale of obsession...

25. The Cable Guy

We can't sit here and...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 17 Oct 2013 - 06:29

Here are 25 more great, unsung films - this time, from the year 1994...

Yes, 1994. The year cinemas were dominated by such whimsical wonders as The Lion King, Forrest Gump, The Mask and, erm, True Lies. It was also the year Gump dominated the Academy Awards, and Four Weddings And A Funeral loomed large at the Baftas.

As ever, there was so much more to the year's cinematic landscape than Tom Hanks' park bench ramblings or Hugh Grant mithering from beneath his gorgously crafted hair. To prove it, here's a list of 25 films that, in our estimation, are among its most underappreciated. There's much horror, drama, tears and laughter, plus a couple of classic documentaries, too.

25. Phantasm III: Lord Of The Dead

The Phantasm series was quite unusual, in that writer and director Don Coscarelli made all four of them. This means that,...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 10 Oct 2013 - 03:27

Another 25 unsung greats come under the spotlight, as we provide our pick of the underappreciated films of 1993...

What a year 1993 was. It saw the release of Star Fox on the Super Nintendo. Bill Clinton became president. Season three of Deep Space Nine premiered on Us television. UK politician Douglas Hurd visited Argentina. Cyndi Lauper released her album Hat Full Of Stars.

Aside from those earth shattering events, we'll probably remember 1993, in cinema terms, as the year Jurassic Park dominated the box office like an angry Tyrannosaurus. A true phenomenon, its profits doubled those of the second most watched film in 1993 cinemas, Mrs Doubtfire, and almost three times as much as the movie below that - the Harrison Ford thriller, The Fugitive.

But as ever, there was so much more to the 1993 movie landscape than dinosaurs and Robin Williams dressed as an old woman.

In just one week the fourth annual Telluride Horror Show kicks off in picturesque Telluride, Co, with Ben Ketai’s anticipated trapped-in-a-mine thriller Beneath rounding out the weekend.

Other films in the line-up include All Hallow’s Eve, a Halloween-based anthology that features the return of the demonic Art the Clown, who was first seen in the terrific short film Terrifier; Jesse T. Cook’s subversive and incredibly divisiveSeptic Man; and the World Premiere of Chemical Peel, directed by Grand Junction, Colorado, native Hank Braxtan.

Joining the fest will also be Guest Director Phil Tippett, who will be on hand to present a special sneak preview of Phil Tippett’s Mad God: Part 1, a surrealistic stop-motion nightmare featuring hundreds of detailed puppets. He will also present a special screening of his short film Mutantland.

For more info visit the official Telluride Horror Show website, "like" Telluride Horror Show on...

Shallow Grave

Directed by Danny Boyle

Written by John Hodge

1994, UK

From its opening sequence set in the point of view of a driver’s seat headed down the streets of Edinburgh, with the techno sounds playing in the background, audiences back in 1994 must have known they were in for something dark, hip and very different. Boyle’s talent was apparent right from the start with those overhead rotating shots closed in on Christopher Eccleston’s head. In his big-screen directing debut, British film maker Danny Boyle demonstrates wit, patience and shows what he can do with little resources and a limited budget. We knew we had a star in the making. Invoking the memory of Alfred Hitchcock, Shallow Grave is a deadpan, nihilistic thriller, best compared to The Last Seduction and Red Rock West – with an overcast similar to the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple and Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan.