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With both “Conclave” to satisfy the middle-aged dads of the world yearning for a classic mid-scale thriller, and “The Return” to satisfy the middle-aged moms obsessed with history and buff Brits, it’s arguably never been a better time to have stock invested in Ralph Fiennes. A thespian of both the stage and screen, Fiennes has become a steady staple of the arts, fluent in both Shakespeare and splashy genre fare. So, too, has Fiennes become a staple of our lives; it almost feels like a rite of passage to learn that the man’s name is actually pronounced “Rafe.”

On the screen, Fiennes has excelled not only in his own performances—never delivering anything less than dignified, even in its delinquency—but in his choice of roles as well. Boasting an eclectic filmography that spans the entire gamut of genre and prestige works alike, Fiennes has more than earned...

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Get ready for an incredible story of human resilience and hope in the face of insurmountable odds in Earth Abides. Based on the 1949 novel of the same name by George R. Stewart, the MGM+ series is created by Todd Komarnicki, and it follows Isherwood “Ish” Williams, a young man who spends months in isolation and when he goes out into the world he learns that most of the world’s population has been wiped out because of a mysterious illness. Now, its up to him and a few other survivors to build back civilization and open their arms to the people who are suffering.

Earth Abides – Episode Guide (When Will the New Episodes Come Out?) Credit – MGM+

Earth Abides consists of six episodes in total. The post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama miniseries premieres on MGM+ with its first episode on...

The Return Official Synopsis: After 20 years away, Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has returned from the Trojan War, but much has changed in his kingdom. His beloved wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche) is a prisoner in her own home, hounded by suitors vying to be

The post Movie Reviews: “The Return,” “The Order” appeared first on Manny the Movie Guy.

For theaters, the post-Thanksgiving weekend usually serves leftover turkeys. Not this year: With “Moana 2” (Disney) and “Wicked” (Universal) leading the way, all films grossed around $135 million. While that’s not a record weekend for 2024 (it’s #13), the total nearly doubles last year’s and it may represent the highest attendance since at least 2012.

This date usually serves as halftime between two holidays, with one or two Thanksgiving holdovers still strong but little other action. With “Gladiator II” (Paramount), this weekend has three.

Among specialized and limited releases, Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” stood out with a second-weekend expansion to 47 theaters and $406,000. Longer-running awards contenders saw weaker post-holiday results.

The weekend also featured a number of non-studio and event presentations with many distributors using the opportunity to get screens to taking their best shot. A handful worked, but a lot of interesting, well-reviewed titles ended up with little to no impact.

Typically, the first weekend of December is notoriously slow, with audiences still recovering from the Thanksgiving holiday. However, in this unusual year of ups and downs at the box office, many more people went to see movies this weekend than usual for this time of year. The box office was driven by strong holdover business for Moana 2 and Wicked, both of which blasted past the $300 million domestic mark this weekend. At the same time, the re-release of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar proved to be a box office juggernaut.

Moana 2 had a slightly bigger week-to-week decline than I anticipated in my predictions earlier this week. According to Deadline, it fell 63%, possibly as a result of its good (but not great) A-minus CinemaScore rating, which suggests audiences aren’t as wild about it as other breakout hits this year (Inside Out 2 and Wicked both received A ratings). Nevertheless, the $52 million weekend was hefty.

Any “Twin Peaks” fan worth their garmonbozia knows Episode 8 of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s revival season “The Return,” from 2017, is the visual and thematic standout. Directing, Lynch traces the origins of an evil presence named Judy — rooting it back to the U.S.’s development of the atomic bomb — in an episode that explains where the series-legacy killer “Bob” came from and how that force has landed now-dazed FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) in a detached red-room netherworld.

But one of the centerpieces of the iconic episode is a visceral performance courtesy of “The” Nine Inch Nails, in the red-lit Twin Peaks Roadhouse Bar, of “She’s Gone Away,” a violent, grunge-fueled ode to destruction and the places you dig into “’til your fingers bleed.” The song was a track on Nine Inch Nails’ 2016 EP “Not Actual Events,” an angry and haunting and weirdly dance-friendly (certainly given...

Greek myths have been told and retold so often that the grandeur of hydras and minotaurs may very well distract us from the tragedy that so often lies at the hearts of these heroes’ tales. Such is the case with Homer and his two seminal writings, “The Iliad” and “Odyssey,” chronicling the overtaking of and subsequent abandonment of the mythic city of Troy. What happens to those men who brave those seas and land upon the shores of war? What becomes of a soul that leaves his family in the pursuit of glory and never returns?

“The Return” asks another, even more despairing question: what becomes of a man who endures those hardships in the name of glory, and comes back with little to show for it but a few distant legends of his departure and the chaos he left behind? To address such an impossible query, Uberto Pasolini turns...

Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes, two of the greatest global actors of their generation or any, stage an “English Patient” reunion with Uberto Pasolini’s stately and somber “The Return.” The epic film, shot in Greece and Italy last year, retells Homer’s classic and oft-recycled epic “Odyssey” through a stripped-down lens that frames the story of Odysseus (Fiennes), Penelope (Binoche), and their son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) as a tale without gods and monsters and instead more of a dysfunctional family narrative. What’s lost is the heat and swashbuckling adventure of the original tale, a humanist turn that finds Odysseus at the end of his mortal coil, Fiennes at first haggard, awash naked on the shores of Ithaca after a shipwreck has left him unmoored and divorced from his former kingdom. The actors are prime, but the movie is a solemn affair that could use more grandeur.

When Odysseus...

An army of indies are populating the last few weeks of the year in a fall box office that’s the most buoyant it’s been in years but still picks and chooses among specialty fare which travels from festival standouts to the Odyssey to Y2K.

The latter is A24’s dial-up disaster hijinks, the directorial debut of SNL veteran Kyle Mooney, opening on about 2,100 screens. Premiered at Sxsx, see Deadline review.

On the last night of 1999, two high school juniors crash a New Years Eve party, only to find themselves fighting for their lives in this disaster comedy. Stars Rachel Zegler, Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, Mason Gooding, Lachlan Watson, The Kid Laroi, Fred Durst and Alicia Silverstone. The distributor’s cross-country nostalgia-fueled takeover included partnerships with Yahoo!, a throwback college tour packed with 90s-themed parties and screenings, and a Y2K microsite.

Bleecker Street revisits Homer’s epic...

Homer’s Odyssey is an epic in many ways — it’s not just a tale of high adventure, struggle and suspense, but of fidelity. Odysseus and his wife Penelope are separated for twenty years, but they never, ever lose hope that the one they love is still out there and waiting. This alone is interesting enough to be its own movie, and director Uberto Pasolini has made just such a film in “The Return.” There are no Greek gods, monsters or sorceresses in this…”The Return” is Just the return, the part at the end where Odysseus exhaustedly drags himself back onto the shore of Ithaca and, after catching his breath for a moment, has to fight a ton of bad dudes for his throne. You might think “didn’t a goddess help disguise him?” but that’s not in there either — Pasolini went for a grounded take. “The King...

Here’s how we know December is likely to gross over $1 billion: in its first eight days through the upcoming weekend, “Moana 2” (Disney), “Wicked” (Universal), and “Gladiator II” (Paramount) will likely combine to take in around $225 million in U.S./Canada box office.

That’s a full weekend plus Sunday through Thursday after Thanksgiving. The three films through Sunday will have grossed over $700 million — all told through then, most of it for “Moana 2” and “Wicked,” both over $300 million by next Sunday.

Those two are certain to hold most of their theaters through Christmas, where their family appeal should rebound. Ridley Scott’s film will still have some juice left. It’s reasonable that combined all three will gross over $500 million during December.

If they do, it should help push the month over $1 billion. And that would happen even though none of the new Christmas titles is expected to...

For the 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards Ceremony, the International Documentary Association returned to a live event held December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The show was also livestreamed on IDA’s YouTube channel. (The nominees and winners are here.)

The ceremony, this year hosted by Adam Conover, has long served as an annual celebration for the documentary community.

The IDA received more than 700 entries from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. IDA Documentary Awards entries were reviewed by jurors consisting of 300 documentary professionals from more than 40 countries. IDA members had access to stream nominees and winners in the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories until December 31, 2024.

At this year’s ceremony, American documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter received the Career Achievement Award; Shiori Ito (“Black Box Diaries”) received the Emerging Filmmaker Award; and the four...

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards took place Dec. 5, 2024 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony was hosted by actor and comedian Adam Conover, and celebrated the best nonfiction films and programs of the year. See the full list of 2024 IDA Awards winners below.

Heading into the evening, “Sugarcane” led all nominees with five, including Best Feature Documentary, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four. The ceremony takes place from 7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Pt and we will continue to update winners throughout the night. You can live stream the ceremony on documentary.org and on the IDA’s YouTube channel.

The ceremony started with presenting “No Other Land” with two special honors: The Pare Lorentz Award and the Courage Under Fire Award. The Emerging Filmmaker Award went to “Black Box Diaries” director Shiori Itô. The ABC News Video Source Award went to “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.

I loved talking to Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. Both are very passionate about their craft and you can feel the love between the two friends. From “Wuthering Heights” to “The English Patient” and now in “The Return,” both actors have shown depth in their characterizations and effective chemistry whether they’re playing forlorn lovers or

The post “The Return” Interview with Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Uberto Pasolini appeared first on Manny the Movie Guy.

It can be tricky keeping track of which movies release each week, especially with the holiday season ushering in a tidal wave of awards films and four-quadrant blockbusters. With a few big titles still left for the year, check out what is coming to theaters in December.

After “Moana 2” made a splash over the Thanksgiving holiday, one of the biggest wide releases this week is “Y2K,” A24’s newest horror comedy. Kyle Mooney’s follow-up to “Unfrosted” takes place on New Year’s Eve in 1999 when two high school students crash a party and find technology coming to life. The cast includes Rachel Zegler, Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, Daniel Zolghadri, Lachlan Watson and Fred Durst.

There are also plenty of independent films to finally catch after their fall festivals runs, including Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch.” Based on the book by Rachel Yoder, this dark comedy stars Amy Adams...

Uberto Pasolini adapts epic poetry on an intimate scale in The Return, which loosely transposes the second half of Homer’s The Odyssey for the screen. Gone are the gods and monsters, or anything of a mythological bent, in this interpretation of Odysseus’s decades-in-the-making voyage home to Ithaca. Pasolini reduces the scale without minimizing the stakes of a husband, father, and warrior who must come to terms with small but mighty forces, from the ravages of age to the unyielding passage of time.

For a film based on one of the oldest works of literature, Pasolini leverages little in the way of words to tell his version of the story. Rather than relying on verse to have us learn about the characters’ responses to various developments, The Return often turns to its actors to convey or process information in close-ups. When talents like Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche sign...

Few stories have been reimagined, relitigated, reframed, and remade as much as those from Greek myth and poetry, and of these, The Odyssey is a usual suspect. From the Coen brothers’ jailbreak flick O Brother, Where Art Thou? to James Joyce’s infamously dense Ulysses, this Homeric epic’s influence has reverberated through the ages.

The annual International Film Festival of India (Iffi) and the overlapping project market Film Bazaar have concluded what has been possibly their most successful editions yet and Variety was on hand to report on the proceedings. Here are some takeaways from the events.

Global Interest in Indian Stories

The international appeal of India-themed narratives, whether Indian-funded or international co-productions, continues to grow, with films including “All We Imagine as Light” and “Girls Will Be Girls” gaining recognition at global festivals. “The success of something like ‘All We Imagine as Light’ increases the possibility for your film to be selected, because it’s driven a fever around Indian cinema right now. It is a real interest,” said Marten Rabarts, head of IFFR Pro, the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s market strand, at a Film Bazaar panel.

Projects such as the Australia-India co-production “The Return” and collaborations like the Aboriginal-Indian film “Bidjara...

Despite the relatively light release year, a welcome spread of films this holiday season brings us good tidings and cheer. From indies to majors, from talking lions to dog-women, there’s variety under the tree this year, offering a mix of blockbuster studio baubles, idiosyncratic character-driven Hanukkah presents, and new stocking-stuffers from stalwart filmmakers.

Acclaimed actor-filmmaker Anupam Kher has announced his next directorial venture “The Return,” a co-production between Australia and India, at the International Film Festival of India (Iffi), Goa.

The project emerges as Anupam Kher Studio wraps production on “Tanvi The Great,” directed by Kher, slated for international release in late 2025.

“The Return” will be produced in partnership with Australian film company Temple, based at Disney Studios Sydney. The production plans to shoot more than 90% of the film in Australia and will cast an Australian actor in a leading role, utilizing Australian talent across multiple departments. Plot details are under wraps at the moment.

Kher, whose career spans over 540 films and 100 plays across 35 years, has worked with directors including Ang Lee, David O. Russell, and Woody Allen. His international credits include “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Hotel Mumbai,” and the series “New Amsterdam.” He is a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honor,...

Editor’s note: “Nowhere Special,” distributed by Cohen Media Group, is one of the most moving new films U.S. audiences could see in 2024. The story of a terminally ill father on a search for a family to adopt his toddler son is profoundly emotional without being manipulative. One of the best reviewed movies of the year, including by IndieWire’s Digital Director Christian Blauvelt, who said “it will absolutely destroy you,” it currently holds a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. But because it premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2020 and was held for distribution until this year, it’s ineligible for Oscars consideration due to an Academy rule that says it would have had to premiere at a festival after January 1, 2023. Its director, Uberto Pasolini, argues below why it should still be on your radar regardless. Pasolini’s next film, “The Return,” a riff on “The Odyssey” starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche,...

The past is ever present in our lives, so it’s unsurprising that many movies lean on that juxtaposition in the stories they tell. In 2024, the past casts an especially big shadow across films like “The Brutalist,” “Gladiator II,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Conclave,” “A Real Pain” “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” “The Return” and even the comedy “My Old Ass.”

“Memory and trauma are inextricable from the present moment,” says “Nickel Boys” director RaMell Ross.

The Holocaust looms over both “A Real Pain” and “The Brutalist,” although the former examines how the trauma still lingers existentially several generations later, while in “The Brutalist” it’s as immediate as the nose on Laszlo Toth’s face: Toth (Adrien Brody) wrecked it jumping from a train to survive, leading to a heroin addiction to treat the pain.

“We all carry our history in our body,” says Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote the movie with director Brady Corbet.

“Sugarcane” earned a leading five nominations, followed by “Soundtrack to Coup d’Etat” with four for the 40th annual International Documentary Association (IDA) Awards. These Oscar precursors will be celebrated in a ceremony on Dec. 5 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. See the full list of nominees below.

Among this year’s IDA nominees for Best Feature, only “Sugarcane” was also nominated for the top prize by the Critics Choice Documentary Awards. Nominees in Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short categories have been selected from the shortlists previously announced. IDA members will have access to view each of the nominated films and can begin voting on November 19, 2024.

IDA has been an inconsistent, but important precursor for the Oscars. Last year, only one of the IDA top 10 went on to contend for Best Documentary Feature: “Bobi Wine: The People’s President” lost that Oscar race to “20 Days in Mariupol.

“Sugarcane,” the documentary about the mistreatment of Indigenous children in Canada, has received the most nominations at yet another awards show for nonfiction features, picking up five noms to lead the field at the International Documentary Association’s IDA Documentary Awards.

In nominations announced on Tuesday, the film by Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie was nominated in the Best Feature Documentary category, as well as for its directing, cinematography, editing and musical score. It had previously led in nominations at the Cinema Eye Honors and Critics Choice Documentary Awards as well.

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” received four nominations, while “Black Box Diaries” and “Queendom” each received three.

In the Best Feature Documentary category, those four films were nominated alongside “Agent of Happiness,” “Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” “Seeking Mavis Beacon” and “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.”

Additional nominations were made in the episodic series,...

The 40th annual IDA Documentary Awards has officially unveiled its list of nominees, including this year’s most beloved and buzziest documentary features. The International Documentary Association (IDA) announced the nominations in 14 categories for the 2024 awards ceremony, which will take place December 5 at The Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. The ceremony will be streamed live on documentary.org and on the IDA YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram channels. The awards show will be hosted by actor, comedian, and writer Adam Conover.

This year, IDA received more than 700 entries in all categories from 77 countries, an increase over last year both in the total number of entries and the countries represented. All IDA Documentary Awards entries were selected by jurors from over 40 countries; the shortlists for the Best Feature Documentary and Best Short Documentary categories were previously announced on October 24.

The IDA will honor prolific documentarian Dawn Porter with the Career Achievement Award.

Sugarcane leads the International Documentary Association’s 2024 IDA Documentary Awards nominees.

The film about the abusive legacy of Catholic-run Native American missionary schools racked up five nods, including for best feature.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat scored four nods and three titles — Queendom, Black Box Diaries and My Sweet Land — landed three nominations apiece.

Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom and Black Box Diaries are up for best feature alongside Dahomey and double nominees Agent of Happiness, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, No Other Land, Seeking Mavis Beacon and The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.

And the directors of Sugarcane, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, Queendom, Black Box Diaries and No Other Land are all up for best director.

This year’s IDA Documentary Awards nominees were selected from more than 700 entries from 77 countries, both up from last year, and, in the feature and shortlist categories, were chosen from shortlists announced on Oct.

Bleecker Street has acquired US rights to David Mackenzie’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) premiere Relay starring Riz Ahmed, Lily James, and Sam Worthington.

The company plans a 2025 theatrical release on the thriller, which Black Bear fully financed and produced alongside Thunder Road Pictures and Sigma Films.

Justin Piasecki wrote the screenplay to the story about a fixer who specialises in brokering lucrative pay-offs between corrupt corporations and individuals who threaten their downfall. When a message arrives from a potential client who needs his protection, the fixer’s rules of engagement start to change.

Relay producers include Basil Iwanyk for Thunder Road,...

Bleecker Street has acquired U.S. rights to “Relay” following the twisty thriller’s debut at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

The film was directed by David MacKenzie, who oversaw the Oscar-nominated “Hell or High Water,” and stars Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”), Lily James (“Pam & Tommy”) and Sam Worthington (“Avatar”). Bleecker Street is planning to release the film in theaters next year.

“Relay” puts a new spin on the kind of paranoid loner films like “The Conversation” and “The Parallax View” that populated ’70s cinema. In it, Ahmed plays a “fixer” who specializes in brokering payoffs between businesses and employees who have secrets about corporate malfeasance that could ruin companies. Because of the nature of his work, he keeps his identity a secret through meticulous planning, but his guard drops ever so slightly when he takes on a new client (Lily James) who needs his protection to stay alive.

Bleecker Street has swooped on Relay, acquiring U.S. rights to the high-concept contemporary thriller, starring Riz Ahmed, Lily James and Sam Worthington, which impressed in its world premiere at this year’s Toronto Film Festival.

Written by Justin Piasecki and directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water), the film will be released in theaters sometime next year.

In Relay, Ahmed plays a world class “fixer” who specializes in brokering lucrative payoffs between corrupt corporations and the individuals who threaten their ruin. He keeps his identity a secret through meticulous planning and always follows an exacting set of rules. But when a message arrives one day from a potential client (James), needing his protection just to stay alive, the rules quickly start to change.

Black Bear fully financed the project and produced alongside Thunder Road Pictures and Sigma Films. Producers include Basil Iwanyk for Thunder Road, Gillian Berrie for Sigma,...

The fall festivals may be in the rearview, but there is still plenty of wheeling and dealing to be done. The latest: Bleecker Street announced Monday it has picked up the U.S. rights for David Mackenzie’s sharp and very entertaining TIFF premiere, “Relay.”

Starring Riz Ahmed, Lily James, and Sam Worthington, the “high-concept contemporary thriller” is a throwback to clever, classy films of yore. Even better: the distributor is planning a 2025 theatrical release for the film. Bleecker has purchased two fall premieres that did well on the fest circuit and beyond, with “Relay” joining Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s “The Friend” as a recent purchase.

Per Bleecker, the film follows Riz Ahmed as “a world class ‘fixer’ who specializes in brokering lucrative payoffs between corrupt corporations and the individuals who threaten their ruin. He keeps his identity a secret through meticulous planning and always follows an exacting set of rules.

Bleecker Street has picked up the U.S. rights to Relay, a gritty corporate whistleblowing thriller from director David MacKenzie that stars Riz Ahmed, Lily James and Sam Worthingon.

Written by Justin Piasecki, Relay stars Ahmed as a fixer who specializes in brokering deals between whistleblowers and endangered corporations. He keeps his identity a secret and follows an exacting set of rules, only to see a message from a potential client, played by James, have him seek protection as the rules of the game quickly change and a dangerous cat-and-mouse chase involving his latest client escalates.

After a world bow in Toronto, Bleecker Street has set a 2025 theatrical release for the film.

Relay was financed by Black Bear, which produces alongside Thunder Road Pictures and Sigma Films. Producers include Basil Iwanyk, Gillian Berrie, Teddy Schwarzman and MacKenzie. Executive producers are Michael Heimler, John Friedberg, Erica Lee and Charlie Morrison.

The...

Half a century after the groundbreaking release of the first issue of Metal Hurlant in France, the endlessly influential comic book anthology will return to print in English in early 2025 as a quarterly publication from Humanoids, and with a Kickstarter campaign now underway as part of Humanoids' 50th anniversary celebrations, we've been provided with an exclusive excerpt that invites readers to check into Elene Usdin's “Nightmare Motel,” one of the many unique stories that will be featured in the first year of the new Metal Hurlant.

Below, you can check out our exclusive preview pages from Elene Usdin's “Nightmare Motel,” as well as cover art and the official press release with additional details. To learn more about the return of Metal Hurlant, visit:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/humanoidsinc/metal-hurlant?ref=ch8qc6

Press Release: Los Angeles, November 13, 2024 – In 1974, filmmaker, writer, mime, and poet Alejandro Jodorowsky was working in...

It has already been five years since Disney+'s successful launch with its premier live-action Star Wars series, The Mandalorian. With three seasons and twenty-four chapters in total, each episode is sure to pack a punch. However, some stand out as extra-special.

Here are the 5 best episodes of The Mandalorian in the past 5 years.

5. Chapter 1: The Mandalorian

Taika Waititi is Ig-11 in the Disney+ series The Mandalorian.

The Mandalorian came out the gates swinging when it first launched in November of 2019 as the flagship series of Disney+. The first episode is as important as any episode in the series as it had to drive home the premise of the show while hooking the audience onto what could happen next. The reveal of what would then be known to the world only as ‘Baby Yoda’ as the target for Bounty Hunter ‘Mando’ set the Star Wars fanbase ablaze while surprisingly...

Ralph Fiennes stars as Odysseus in the upcoming drama The Return, a new take on Homer’s Odyssey. Trailer here!

Ralph Fiennes will soon star in Conclave, the Vatican-set drama in which he struggles to juggle conspiracy and politicking during a papal election. That film comes courtesy of All Quiet On The Western Front's Edward Berger and lands in UK cinemas on the 29th of November. Fiennes takes the lead in a very starry ensemble.

If that’s not enough Ralph Fiennes looking intense and careworn for you then fear not, because December will bring you more in The Return. It’s a new take on Homer’s Odyssey, the ancient Greek epic poem that is one of the oldest works of literature in the world.

The film is set to take on the part of the tale where Odysseus, now a veteran of the Trojan War, returns to find...

Since his nearly half-decade-old, internationally co-produced “Nowhere Special,” Uberto Pasolini has returned to the director’s chair with “The Return.” Retelling the Greek epic Homer’s “The Odyssey,” the story tells of Odysseus, who, upon returning, realizes things are not the same as when he left twenty years ago for the Trojan War. Now, both his wife and son are in danger, and it is up to him to confront it all and save his family.

Continue reading ‘The Return’ Trailer: Ralph Fiennes All-Star Historical Film Hits Theaters December 2024 at The Playlist.

"If I were free, I'd fight for what was mine. I'd fight for my people." Bleecker Street FIlms has revealed an official trailer for The Return, a brand new take on the The Odyssey story from Italian filmmaker Uberto Pasolini. This film skipped Venice and ended up premiering at the Toronto & Chicago Film Festivals this fall, with a US release now set for December in theaters. Based on the classic story written by Homer. After 20 years Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, where he finds his wife held prisoner by suitors vying to be king and his son facing death at their hands. To win back his family and all he has lost, Odysseus must rediscover his strength and fight back. The film reunites actors Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche 30 years after their Academy Award winning triumph in The English Patient. The cast also includes Charlie Plummer, Marwan Kenzari, Claudio Santamaria,...

With his acclaimed drama Nowhere Special finally getting a U.S. release this past summer, four years after its premiere, Uberto Pasolini is now back with his next feature. The Return, which reunites the powerhouse duo of Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, is an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. Following a TIFF world premiere, Bleecker Street will release it in theaters on December 6 and now the first trailer has arrived.

Here’s the synopsis: “After 20 years away, Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has returned from the Trojan War, but much has changed in his kingdom. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is a prisoner in her own home, hounded by suitors vying to be king. Their son Telemachus faces death at the hands of these suitors, who see him as merely an obstacle to their pursuit of the kingdom. Odysseus has also...

Ralph Fiennes may be turning heads this awards season for his buzzy performance as Cardinal Lawrence in “Conclave,” but the two-time Academy Award nominee is showing off a different set of skills in epic saga “The Return.”

Fiennes stars as the iconic hero Odysseus in the TIFF-selected feature, which is co-written, directed, and produced by Uberto Pasolini, who previously moved viewers to tears this year with “Nowhere Special.” Juliette Binoche plays Odysseus’ wife Penelope, who has to protect the throne in the aftermath of the Trojan War.

The official synopsis reads: “After 20 years away, Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has returned from the Trojan War, but much has changed in his kingdom. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is a prisoner in her own home, hounded by suitors vying to be king. Their son Telemachus faces death at the hands of these suitors,...

Palestinian director Scandar Copti’s Happy Holidays has won the Golden Alexander-Theo Angelopoulos prize for best film at the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which ran from October 31-November 10.

The family drama centring on an Arab-speaking Israeli family premiered earlier this year in Venice’s Horizons strand, winning best screenplay. Copti had previously won the best film and screenplay prizes at Thessaloniki in 2009 for his Academy Award nominated Ajami.

The Silver Alexander for best director went to Belgian Leonardo van Dijl for his debut feature Julie Keeps Quiet, winner of the Sacd award in Cannes Critics’ Week sidebar.

The jury of the international competition,...

“The Return” is a new mythic historical feature, directed by Uberto Pasolini, starring Ralph Fiennes, Charlie Plummer, Juliette Binoche, Edward Bond and John Collee, releasing December 6, 2024 in theaters:

“…20 years after being washed up on the shores of Ithaca, ‘Odysseus’ finally returns home. But much has changed for this King’s kingdom since he left to fight in the ‘Trojan War’.

“His beloved wife ‘Penelope’ is now a prisoner in her own home, hounded by her many ambitious suitors to choose a new husband, a new king…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

Returning to Greece with the historical drama “The Return” proved an emotional affair for Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes and director-producer Uberto Pasolini. “Meeting this dream, this need inside Uberto and his passion for the story… We were really moved,” said Binoche before bursting into tears alongside her co-star and director at the film’s press conference at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

“It was moving because that is what you wish for as an actor,” continued Binoche with a quavering voice, while a visibly teary-eyed Pasolini sat alongside her. “We know how difficult it is [to get a film made]. When we had [Pasolini] go home with the hard drives he could work with and complete this wish, it felt like we were okay. We’re okay.”

“The Return,” based on Homer’s ancient Greek poem “Odyssey,” is a passion project 30 years in the making for the “Still Life” and “Nowhere Special” director, best known as the...

Veteran actors Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes exchanged teary-eyed tributes as they picked up honorary career achievement awards this evening at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece.

The veteran duo are two of the headline guests this year in Thessaloniki, and they were presented with the festival’s honorary Golden Alexander award for their respective bodies of work, which now includes three collaborations.

“I’m very grateful and honored to be here with this woman. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to talk about Juliette,” Fiennes told the crowd in Greece. “I want to thank Juliette because working with her is a dream. She is an extraordinary artist to spend your time with. She’s a great woman. She channels a very unusual and unique energy. She’s inspirational to work with. She gives in a way that I have not experienced with any other actor.”

At this point Fiennes began to tear up,...

Despite blue skies over Greece’s second city ahead of the opening ceremony, the 65th Thessaloniki Film Festival kicks off Oct. 31 under clouds of uncertainty, with the war in Ukraine raging toward its three-year anniversary and the year-old Israel-Hamas conflict spilling into neighboring countries and threatening to engulf the entire Middle East. The U.S., meanwhile, heads to the polls next week for an election that’s been framed as a referendum on the fate of American democracy itself — with the eyes of the world watching.

For Thessaloniki festival director Orestis Andreadakis, a veteran film critic who’s been at the helm of the festival since 2016, global events have only brought a renewed sense of urgency “to find movies that matter,” he tells Variety on the eve of opening night. “Movies that say something about our lives, our situation in the world, with so many changes, so many dangers — wars,...

“Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and “Sugarcane” are among the 20 nonfiction films that have made the shortlist for the International Documentary Association’s 2024 IDA Documentary Awards, the IDA announced on Thursday morning.

The shortlisted features come from 21 different countries and include works by Mati Diop (“Dahomey”), Raoul Peck (“Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”). The IDA’s feature shortlist is typically idiosyncratic in that it doesn’t include several of the most acclaimed and highest-profile nonfiction films of the year, including “Will & Harper,” “Daughters,” “Piece by Piece,” “Mountain Queen” and “Union.”

Of the 20 films on the IDA shortlist, eight also appeared on the Doc NYC list of likely awards titles: “Black Box Diaries,” “Dahomey,” “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found,” “No Other Land,” Queendom,” “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,” “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” and “Sugarcane.”

The IDA’s shortlist...

Bleecker Street has acquired North American rights to Telluride Film Festival world premiere The Friend starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, and Bing the Great Dane.

Scott McGehee and David Siegel co-wrote and co-directed the drama, which also played Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and New York Film Festival.

Watts plays writer and teacher Iris, whose comfortable, solitary New York life is thrown into disarray when her closest friend and mentor (Murray) dies suddenly and bequeaths her his beloved Great Dane. Iris eventually bonds with the beast and reconciles with the past and her creative inner life.

The ensemble cast includes Sarah Pidgeon,...

Naomi Watts and a very big dog are heading to cinemas.

“The Friend,” a touching drama about a writer and editor whose literary mentor commits suicide and leaves her with his Great Dane to care for, has been acquired by Bleecker Street. The indie studio has nabbed North American distribution rights for an undisclosed sum — the sale took some time, which is something of a surprise given that “The Friend” received strong reviews when it showed at fall film festivals like Telluride and Toronto. It’s another reminder that studios are being more cautious when it comes to buying projects post-covid. The indie and arthouse theatrical market is still struggling to fully rebound from pandemic disruptions.

“The Friend” was written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, the team behind “The Deep End” and “What Maisie Knew,” and co-stars Bill Murray, Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino, Constance Wu, Noma Dumezweni and Ann Dowd.

Manborg, Father’s Day, The Void, Leprechaun Returns, and Psycho Goreman director Steven Kostanski’s horror comedy Frankie Freako, which is said to be a “commemoration of various practical FX-led projects including Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Ghoulies Go to College,” was given a limited theatrical release earlier this month, and now our friends at Bloody Disgusting have learned when we’re going to be able to watch this movie in the comfort of our own homes! They report that Frankie Freako will be getting a digital release on October 25th, with a Scream Factory Blu-ray release to follow on November 5th. The digital release is available for pre-order through Amazon at This Link, while Blu-ray copies can be pre-ordered Here.

The story of Frankie Freako follows Conor Sweeney (The Editor) as a workaholic yuppie with a dilemma: no one in his life respects him! Not his boss, not his coworkers,...

IDFA Forum (November 17-20), the co-production and co-financing market of International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), has unveiled the line-up for its 2024 edition, with projects from Aliona van der Horst and Eva Mulad among the selection.

IDFA Forum consists of the Forum Pitch, Producer Connection, Rough Cut Presentations, and IDFA DocLab Forum strands. This year’s 55-strong selection is dominated by women filmmakers across all formats, according to the organisers.

Among attendees in the Forum Pitch and Producer Connection is Russian-Dutch director Aliona van der Horst, whose Gerlach (co-directed with Luuk Bouwman) won the IDFA award for best Dutch film in...

"The best horror weekend of the year returns to high altitude! Telluride Horror Show is back for its 15th edition, announcing its entire lineup and schedule for October 11-13, 2024 in the world-famous mountain resort town of Telluride, Colorado."

With more than 50 films, this year's Telluride Horror Show is packed with enough goodies to satisfy any horror fan this Halloween season, including Presence, The Creep Tapes, Get Away, Dead Talents Society and much more. From its impressive guest lineup, to features, and shorts, take a look at the full lineup below and head over to the official website for information on attending: https://www.telluridehorrorshow.com/

Special Guests

Rachel Harrison

Guest Author

Rachel Harrison is the national bestselling author of So Thirsty, Black Sheep, Such Sharp Teeth, Cackle, and The Return, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica,...

Titles like ‘A Small Light’ and ‘Togo’ have been removed from Disney+ even as the streamer prepares to hike its subscription rates.

Disney+ is apparently feeling pretty confident about its ability to shrug off the ire of customers, these days. The service has enacted a new round of title removals, pulling more than 20 shows and movies from its catalog in its latest efforts to streamline. The removals themselves aren’t all that rare, but the response from Disney when asked about the pulled titles reveals a company that has no qualms about facing backlash from customers, despite the public relations year it’s had.

Key Details: Titles removed from Disney+ include “Hailey’s On It,” “Love & WWE: Bianca & Montez,” and more. Disney defended the decision to remove the titles, saying they represented less than 2% of its catalog. Disney+ plans are increasing in price starting Oct. 17. Sign Up Now $7.99+ / month disneyplus.