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It’s a Wonderful Life is one of the most beloved Christmas movies of all time and the classic film is aired on Christmas Eve every year.

The movie will be airing on NBC at 8/7c on Tuesday night (December 24) and you can also stream it for free on services like Prime Video, Roku Channel, and Plex.

We’ve gathered some fun facts about the movie that you might not know!

1. Henry Fonda and Cary Grant were in the running to play the role of George Bailey, played by James Stewart. 2. While the film is one of the most beloved Christmas movies of all time, it was a box office flop and only made $3.3 million during its initial run. The film failed to recoup the $3.7 million cost. 3. The movie was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, but it did not win any of them. 4. In the scene where Donna Reed...

In 1971, CBS aired a made-for-tv movie about a family in rural Virginia celebrating Christmas in the midst of the Great Depression. The Homecoming: A Christmas Story was based on a book by Earl Hamner Jr. and inspired by his own life as a child in the 1930s. The touching story was originally intended as a standalone film. But it proved to be so popular with audiences that network executives decided to turn it into a TV series. Thus, The Waltons was born.

‘The Waltons’ creator says ‘everything fell into place’ for ‘The Homecoming’ ‘The Waltons’ creator Earl Hamner Jr. | CBS via Getty Images Related

‘The Waltons’ Cast, Then and Now

In 2003, Hamner — who died in 2016 — sat down for a lengthy interview with the Television Academy Foundation where he discussed his life and work. He recalled the origins of The Homecoming, which was based on his semi-autobiographical 1961 book Spencer’s Mountain.

The book “described a night,...

Sir Anthony Hopkins casts a pretty huge shadow in the world of thespians and movie stars. The Welsh-born actor has been a steady presence in Hollywood as well as the theater industry since the 1960s. However, the Oscar winner has not been quite as successful in his personal life as he has been in the entertainment industry.

Sir Anthony Hopkins [Credit: Lionsgate]

Despite his well-established and formidable career, the actor has led a drastic life marred by a constant struggle with addiction and two tumultuous marriages until he finally found a footing with Stella Arroyave, his third wife. Now, the Hannibal actor maintains a life of relative peace as he spends his days basking in the glory of his outstanding legacy.

Sir Anthony Hopkins’s saga of lifelong struggle Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs [Credit: Orion Pictures]

Not every man is built to outlast or forego temptation and...

In 1982, 76-year-old Henry Fonda finally won a long-overdue Best Actor Oscar trophy, becoming the oldest Best Actor winner up to that time. His last acting nomination had been in 1941, and he held the record for the longest span between acting nominations until 2023. Judd Hirsch broke Fonda’s 41-year record 41 years after it was set, earning his second supporting nomination for “The Fabelmans” 42 years after his bid for “Ordinary People.” Now, one of his former co-stars could possibly break that record.

Hirsch earned two Best Comedy Actor Emmys for the sitcom “Taxi” (1978-1982). Carol Kane co-starred on the series from 1980-1983, also earning two Emmys, one for lead and one for supporting comedy actress. She is now receiving rave reviews for her role in “Between the Temples,” and might be on track to break the record Hirsch broke two years ago. Kane has already earned the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress,...

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Juror #2 is a legal thriller drama film directed by Clint Eastwood from a screenplay by Jonathan Abrams. The 2024 film follows Justin Kemp, an ordinary member who is called upon to serve as a jury member in a murder case. However, when he realizes that the suspect is not really the murderer, he tries to sway the jury without telling anyone the truth without anyone finding out the truth, because if it comes out, it will destroy his life. Juror #2 stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Chris Messina, Gabriel Basso, Zoey Deutch, and Cedric Yarbrough. So, if you loved the thrilling courtroom drama, intense twists, and compelling characters in Juror #2, here are some similar movies you should check out next.

12 Angry Men Credit – United Artists

12 Angry Men is a legal thriller drama film directed by Sidney Lumet...

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This December, Prime Video is bringing you a lot of entertainment, from the much-anticipated sequel film to My Fault to an exciting anthology series based on different video games titled Secret Level. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Prime Video this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 7 best films that are coming to Prime Video in December 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

After Hours (December 1) Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90% Credit – Warner Bros.

After Hours is a dark comedy film directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Joseph Minion. The 1985 film follows Paul Hackett, an office worker with a set routine, but when one night he breaks that routine to meet a strange woman, he finds himself in several...

Los Angeles, Nov 23 – Bridget Fonda, celebrated actress and member of Hollywood’s legendary Fonda dynasty, was a prominent fixture in the 1990s film industry. However, her sudden departure from acting in 2002 has left fans and critics reflecting on a career filled with accolades and a personal choice to step away from the spotlight.

Fonda, 60, is the daughter of actor Peter Fonda, granddaughter of Henry Fonda, and niece of Jane Fonda. She seemed destined for a career in entertainment, appearing on stage as a child and making her screen debut at age five in Easy Rider. After studying method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute and graduating from New York University, Fonda launched her professional career in 1988.

From 1988 to 2002, Fonda appeared in dozens of films, earning two Golden Globe nominations and an Emmy nod. Her filmography spans genres, including comedies, thrillers, and dramas, with roles in The Godfather Part III,...

Bridget Fonda is the daughter of Peter Fonda, the granddaughter of Henry Fonda, and the niece of Jane Fonda, so it only seemed natural that she would become an actor. She started appearing on stage as a girl and appeared in "Easy Rider" with her father when she was only five years old.

Fonda would go on to study method acting at the famed Lee Strassberg Theater. She started appearing in films only two years after graduating at NYU. Acting was in her blood and it seemed like she never considered doing anything else. From 1988 to 2002, Fonda appeared in dozens of high-profile Hollywood films, and was nominated for two Golden Globes and an Emmy. She retired unexpectedly in 2002 and hasn't been seen on screen since. Throughout the 1990s, however, Fonda was something of a cinematic "It" girl, appearing in raucous comedies, dramatic indies, intense crime films, and a few of Sam Raimi's productions.

One of the most famous women in the world, Angelina Jolie, started acting right out of high school. Despite her outward appearance, she has described herself as an awkward outsider at Beverly Hills High School, where she was teased because by her rich classmates. She lived with her mother in an apartment, and the family existed only on child support from her father actor Jon Voight, who had financial problems of his own. She later transferred to a different school and found her identity as what she describes as “a punk chick with tattoos.”

She began her career in a series of forgettable films (“Cyborg 2” anyone?) but then suddenly grabbed attention in the TV mini-series “George Wallace.” The series depicted the life of the title character, who was a controversial governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate. Jolie received very positive reviews as his second wife, Cornelia. Later that same...

James Gunn is a curious figure in popular culture. As a young man, just rising in the film business, Gunn co-wrote the witty and disgusting Troma epic "Tromeo & Juliet" with Lloyd Kaufman, and it featured kinky sex, a bisexual Juliet, cow monsters, mutant penis creatures, and an opening narration by Lemmy from Motörhead. After that, Gunn took the piss out of the superhero genre with "The Specials," a low-low budget film about what superheroes — petty jerks, mostly — do on their day off. He stayed aloft in Hollywood writing the screenplays for two surreal "Scooby-Doo" movies, and Zack Snyder's remake of "Dawn of the Dead" before making his directorial debut in 2006 with "Slither," another gross movie about body-invading worm monsters and wacko mutants.

Gunn then deconstructed superheroes even further with "Super" in 2010, a film that hypothesizes that superheroes are mentally ill and addicted to extreme violence. "Super" is bleak,...

Clint Eastwood understands America as an imperfect but noble project, its levers of power flawed but pulled toward justice and honor. If Juror #2 is indeed his last film behind the camera, its focus on truth and justice alone makes it a fitting one. So clearly influenced by Eastwood’s contrarian streak, it can feel more than a little naïve at times, sometimes even inscrutable, but the tautness with which this pulpy, tense, and undeniably curious legal drama has been crafted makes it easy to overlook its often preposterous plotting.

A recovering alcoholic and lifestyle magazine writer with an expectant wife at home, Justin Kemp (Nicholas Hoult) is selected to serve on the jury for the murder trial of a man accused of beating his girlfriend and dumping her body in a roadside gulch—a crime that he comes to believe is actually a hit and run committed by himself. In both dialogue and story structure,...

We all know that Westerns are the most American of movie genres, one that many U.S.-born actors view as a proving ground of sorts. Strapping yourself with a couple of six-shooters and hopping astride a horse presents the opportunity to measure yourself against some of the greatest to ever do it: James Stewart, Henry Fonda, and John Wayne, to name just a legendary few. Oh, to stride down a dusty street at high noon, rope cattle at the ranch, or wallop someone you probably don't know over the back with a wooden chair in the midst of a saloon brawl -- this is why we make and love movies.

For a guy who professes a deep and abiding love for classic films, Tom Cruise must've been champing at the bit to go into the West with Ron Howard in 1992's "Far and Away." Getting to make a Western...

The 2024 edition of the Valladolid International Film Week, also known as Seminci, wrapped on Saturday (October 26), giving its top award, the Golden Spike, to Misericordia by Alain Guiraudie.

Misericordia tells the story of a man who returns to his hometown for the funeral of his former boss, the village baker, and decides to stay for a few days with the man’s widow, getting involved in a series of unexpected events.

Guiraudie also won the best screenplay award.

The members of the Valladolid jury, Greek director Sofía Exarchou; Spanish actress Aida Folch; American critic Devika Girish; Spanish filmmaker Luis López Carrasco...

A Genre Too Big to Fail (So They Say) In 2022 alone so far, we’ve gotten Matt Reeves’s ‘The Batman,’ Sam Raimi’s ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,’ and of course (who can forget?) ‘Morbius.’ We’re not quite halfway into the year and we have three big-name superhero movies on our plate — and that’s actually a low number, compared to some past years. I remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, that in 2017, we got ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,’ ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ ‘Thor: Ragnarok,’ ‘Justice League,’ ‘Logan,’ and ‘The Lego Batman Movie.’ There was at least one superhero movie for every season, and you simply couldn’t get away from them for long. I’m not saying this is entirely a bad thing, of course; after all, I do like most of the movies mentioned. I don’t think there’s much room for debate,...

The Screen Actors Guild has announced that actress, activist, and icon Jane Fonda will officially be the 60th recipient of the SAG Life Achievement Award, SAG-AFTRA’s highest tribute, at the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards taking place on Sunday, February 23, 2025.

Given each year to a well-established performer who has contributed to improving the image of the acting profession and has a history of active involvement in humanitarian and public service endeavors, the SAG Life Achievement Award recipient is nominated and voted on by members of the SAG-AFTRA National Honors and Tributes Committee.

In reaction to news of the honor, Fonda said in a press statement, “I am deeply honored and humbled to be this year’s recipient of the SAG Life Achievement Award. I have been working in this industry for almost the entirety of my life and there’s no honor like the one bestowed on you by your peers.

Alvin Rakoff, the Canadian-born filmmaker who directed Laurence Olivier in A Voyage Round My Father, has died. He was 97.

His death was confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter by his longtime publicist, Nick Pourgourides. He passed away on Oct. 12 surrounded by family at home in Chiswick, a neighborhood in London.

Rakoff as a writer, director and producer of over 100 TV, film and stage productions, as well as novels, directed Olivier and co-stars Alan Bates and Jane Asher in the 1982 TV drama A Voyage Round My Father, a film written by John Mortimer and which earned the director his second Emmy Award.

Alvin and Olivier also worked together on Mr. Halpern and Mr. Johnson and A Talent for Murder, both shot in 1983. The two-time Emmy Award winner also gave a young Sean Connery his first leading role in the 1957 film Requiem for a Heavyweight, and Alan Rickman as a young actor was...

Alvin Rakoff, the veteran Canadian filmmaker best known for pics like the 1982 feature A Voyage Round My Father starring Laurence Olivier, died in Chiswick, London, October 12 surrounded by his family. He was 97.

Rakoff’s former personal agent confirmed the news with Deadline this morning.

Born on on February 6, 1927, in Toronto Rakoff was the third of seven children. After graduating from the University of Toronto with a psychology degree, Rakoff spent time as a news reporter. His first job as a writer was with the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), which later sponsored Rakoff to visit the UK. Within days of arriving, he sold his first fiction script to the BBC. He was soon invited to join the BBC’s director’s training course and, the following year at the age of twenty-six, Rakoff became the youngest producer/director in the BBC drama department.

As Rakoff once recalled: “I trained at the BBC as a director-producer.

Alvin Rakoff, the Canadian director who made films including Say Hello To Yesterday and who helped launch the careers of Sean Connery and Alan Rickman, has died at the age of 97.

Rakoff died on October 12, “peacefully…surrounded by his loving family in the same, beautiful old house in Chiswick he had bought back in 1971”, according to Nick Pourgourides, a long-time representative of the filmmaker.

Rakoff directed 11 feature films across a near 70-year career, including 1969 crime film Crossplot starring Roger Moore and Claudie Lange; 1970 drama Hoffman led by Peter Sellers; and 1971 romantic comedy Say Hello To Yesterday starring Jean Simmons.

He...

Canadian director, writer and producer Alvin Rakoff, best known for directing Laurence Olivier in “A Voyage Round My Father,” has died at the age of 97.

The cause of death was “old age,” his publicist told Variety. He died on Oct. 12 at home, surrounded by his family.

Over a career spanning more than four decades, which began when television was still only available in black-and-white, Rakoff was involved in over 100 television, film and stage productions as well as writing novels. According to his representatives, he was still working into his ’90s.

Rakoff was the third of seven children born to Sam and Pearl Rakoff in Toronto in 1927. His parents owned a dry goods shop but the director grew up in poverty after the Great Depression hit in 1929. He would later recount the experience in his novel “Baldwin Street.”

After seeing his first film in a theater at the age of 6, his...

James Stewart began his professional acting career on the stage in the early 1930s, and it wasn't the rosiest beginning. He was cast in a string of walk-on parts and stage manager positions on Broadway and was canned from several of them for missing his cues. Still in his mid-20s, Stewart even contemplated leaving acting behind and returning to school. Luckily, he landed the lead role in a play called "Yellow Jack" in 1934, and critics loved him. Encouraged to stay in showbiz, Stewart drifted toward Hollywood, where he starred in his first film, Tim Whelan's "The Murder Man," in 1935. 

From there, it was a meteoric rise for Stewart, who appeared in six feature films in 1936 alone, working for prestigious and successful directors like William Wellman and W.S. Van Dyke. Stewart's acting career would take a serious upturn in 1938 when he starred in "You Can't Take It With You,...

Although Nicole Kidman recently accepted the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award in recognition of her four-decade acting career, there is no indication that her life’s work is anywhere near finished. Indeed, according to Gold Derby’s racetrack odds, the 56-year-old is well on her way to picking up her sixth Oscar nomination for her lead performance in the critically acclaimed “Babygirl,” which would make her the 13th AFI honoree to subsequently earn film academy recognition in a competitive category.

The fact that Kidman’s life achievement award was presented by her pal and costar, Meryl Streep, is quite fitting given that she’s the only woman to go from being an AFI recipient to an Oscar contender. Since receiving the AFI honor in 2004, she has racked up a whopping eight bids, including a successful one for “The Iron Lady” (2012). A previous champ for “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1980) and...

When it comes to critical adoration, the late actor Paul Newman holds at least two rare distinctions. First of all, he's one of just a handful of actors who has not one or two but three perfect Rotten Tomatoes scores under his belt, having appeared in three different movies that critics at the time (and today) unanimously agree are pretty dang good. Newman is also one of the few actors (at least that we've come across at /Film) whose best-reviewed movies include a couple of stone cold classics.

Most of the best movies ever made don't seem to end up with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, as the sheer number of professional eyes on them makes it likely that someone will eventually go against the grain. Thanks to this phenomenon, the best-reviewed movies of most actors' careers technically tend to end up being much lesser-known (and therefore less-reviewed) films, like "Dinosaurs: Giants...

Composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul just won their first Emmy Awards at Sunday night’s Creative Arts ceremony, making them the 20th and 21st people ever to achieve an Egot. They won in the Best Music and Lyrics category alongside Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman for their catchy tune “Which of the Pickwick Triplets Did It?” from “Only Murders in the Building.” They were up against song nominees from “Girls5eva,” “Saturday Night Live,” “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” and “True Detective: Night Country.” Enjoy watching our interview with Pasek, Paul, Shaiman and Wittman from earlier this summer.

The duo’s previous Egot wins began in 2016 when they, along with composer Justin Hurwitz, won the Oscar for Best Original Song for “La La Land.” They won the Tony in 2017 for their score from that year’s Best Musical champ, “Dear Evan Hansen.” In 2018 they won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album for that same show.

On Wednesday 28 August 2024, BBC Four broadcasts Wild!

A Summer on Golden Pond Episode Summary

The upcoming episode of “Wild,” titled “A Summer on Golden Pond,” promises to be an engaging look at the natural wonders of Squam Lake, famously known as Golden Pond. This episode will air on BBC Four and is set to explore the vibrant life surrounding this picturesque location, which was made famous by the classic film featuring Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn.

Viewers will be introduced to the lake’s lively residents, including the quirky loons known for their unique calls. These birds bring a sense of humor to the lake with their entertaining sounds. The episode will also highlight the activities of lily-eating beavers and the often-overlooked porcupines that roam the area. Each creature adds its own charm to the ecosystem, making the lake a fascinating place to observe wildlife.

Karlene Schwartz, a dedicated naturalist...

In the first teaser trailer for Season 8 of “9-1-1,” 22 million killer bees descend upon Los Angeles, which will keep the crew of the 118 more than busy. The teaser contains the kind of world-of-nature statistic Buck (Oliver Stark) would love: “The average human cannot survive 500 bee stings.” Eep!

While we don’t have a lot more details about how this ’70s-movie-style disaster will play out, we know these brave firefighters and paramedics are up for it. After all, they’ve already dealt with rampaging alpacas, stalker crows and that one time a guy was attacked by a shark… in the middle of a freeway.

As you’ll recall, the opening episodes of Season 7 paid homage to “The Poseidon Adventure” by upending Bobby (Peter Krause) and Athena (Angela Bassett)’s honeymoon cruise with a tidal wave as well as terrorists.

Watch the teaser trailer in the video below:

Season 7 ended with Bobby...

This post contains spoilers for the first episode of "Only Murders in the Building" season 4.

Who doesn't love a good movie reference? Hulu's popular mystery-comedy "Only Murders in the Building" always has, whether it's crafting a set featuring stealth nods to many of Meryl Streep's best roles or letting Steve Martin deliver a cute "Father of the Bride" joke during a climactic moment. The show's references have always been great, but they've never been an overt, overlying theme of the series so much as a series of semi-subtle winks and nods for the movie buffs watching. The new, Hollywood-centric fourth season seems set to change that.

The new season starts off with an ode to the movies, delivered in the form of Charles' (Martin) final podcast recording for last season's mystery, the death of movie star Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd). "Motion pictures were created over a hundred years ago,...

Kamala Harris has arrived at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago as the party’s official nominee for president. Things, however, weren’t as smooth in The Best Man: A political endorsement was a chief concern when it hit cinemas 60 years ago.

Written by Gore Vidal and based on his play of the same name, The Best Man follows two candidates — ethical former Secretary of State William Russell (played by Henry Fonda) and the more conniving Sen. Joe Cantwell (Cliff Robertson) — campaigning to become their unnamed political party’s presidential nominee. There’s no love lost between the candidates, who each vie for the backing of the ailing former president, Art Hockstader (Lee Tracy, reprising his role from the Tony-winning production).

Franklin J. Schaffner, who would win the best director Oscar for Patton (1970), helmed the big-screen version of The Best Man, which United Artists released on April 5, 1964, ahead of...

There have been several successful filmmakers in Hollywood, but talents like Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg are a rarity. The two are cemented as the epitome of class and creativity, and stand tall in their respective genres.

Jack Nicholson in The Shining| Warner Bros

However, the two greats did not always agree with each other’s opinions, but the difference only led to something greater. Kubrick, being the pioneer in film adaptations of several written works, once gave an important lesson to Spielberg with the help of his movie, The Shining.

Steven Spielberg didn’t like The Shining on his first watch

Steven Spielberg is counted among the legends of the film industry today. In his career spanning decades, he has learned from some of the best in the field, including Stanley Kubrick, an expert in the psychological thriller genre. The Shining is often considered his magnum opus in that field.

Riding the record-breaking, opening weekend high of "Deadpool & Wolverine," Marvel Studios took the San Diego Comic Con's Hall H stage on Saturday night for its first full-stride victory lap in a shockingly long time. This is, after all, a studio that has mostly dominated the box office since "The Avengers" brought the Marvel Cinematic Universe together for an epochal superhero throwdown. Comic book fans had been dreaming of this movie for decades. Non-fans had been wired for it since Jon Favreau's "Iron Man," if not earlier.

12 years ago, this anticipation caught many in the film industry by surprise. If they'd known Marvel superheroes could be the cowboys of the 21st century, they probably would've taken this genre much more seriously after the surprise success of Tim Burton's "Batman" in 1989. And that's the thing with the superhero genre in this business. For a long time, these properties were...

Boris Lojkine’s drama The Story Of Souleymane has won Best International Film at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

The feature, which was feted with the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in May, revolves around a young man rehearsing his lines ahead of an asylum application interview as he cycles around Paris delivering food.

Romania’s Emanuel Parvu won best director for Three Kilometers to the End of the World about a young gay man who is brutally attacked when he returns to his conservative village in the Danube Delta wetlands region for the summer.

The jury International Feature competition jury consisting of Michel Franco, Guy Nattiv and Maria Choustova also awarded Hu Guan’s Black Dog with a Special Mention.

UK-Indian director Sandhya Suri’s rape drama Santosh won Best Film in the First Feature Competition, with Block Pass by French director Antoine Chevrollier scoring a Special Mention.

Bedouin...

A mash-up of cheerleading and soccer tropes, Victory is like a shiny, bright beach toy that breaks the first time you use it. The opening-night presentation at this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, it has enough hit tunes and dance routines for K-pop fans, as well as some melodrama for their parents.

Most of all, Victory is a showcase for Lee Hye-ri, the South Korean superstar known more familiarly as just “Hyeri.” A member of the Girl’s Day band, Hyeri forged a career on Korean TV as an adorable little sister or the “cute girl next door.” That led to modeling and social media, where she has millions of followers.

In Victory, she’s Pil-Sun, a misfit and outsider. With her bulky clothes and ratty hair, she’s almost afraid to be pretty. Branded a troublemaker at her high school In Geoje, an island off the southern coast of Korea,...

Long before Kevin Costner ever set foot onto the Yellowstone Ranch or danced with wolves, he became a rising star with Lawrence Kasdan’s Silverado!

The Story: Fresh off a five year stint in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Emmett (Scott Glenn), a cowboy, heads to a small town called Silverado to pick up his kind-hearted but deadly younger brother, Jake (Kevin Costner), picking up a gambler, Paden (Kevin Kline) and a black cowboy named Mal (Danny Glover) along the way. Once in Silverado, they realize the town is being ruled by Emmett’s old nemesis, who’s in-league with a former friend of Paden’s – the town sheriff – Cobb (Brian Dennehy). Eager to settle down, all four men find themselves challenged by the ruthless factions that run the town, and will have to unite to save the day.

The Players: Starring: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner,...

Jane Fonda and Bob Newhart’s paths didn’t cross much over the many decades of their respective careers — but in the last eight years, they became neighbors and friends, as Fonda wrote in an Instagram tribute to Newhart, who died Thursday at age 94. “He was just like on the screen: understated, kind, wry, and very funny,” Fonda wrote on Instagram. “As I’m the oldest one around here these days, Bob liked to have me come over to reminisce with him about the old timers, Red Skelton, Ed Sullivan,...

The American Film Institute will select its 50th life achievement award recipient in the next few months. We recently offered a poll about which epic actor should receive this AFI honor in 2025. Two-time Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins is your top choice with 20.33% of support based on our poll results.

In a separate poll, Francis Ford Coppola finished first ahead of Ron Howard and Ridley Scott among many possible directors. In another separate poll, we asked which legendary actress should receive this honor, with Glenn Close winning ahead of Maggie Smith and Judi Dench.

Here are the results of the poll following Hopkins in first place:

Robert Redford (19.51%)

Gene Hackman (13.01%)

Daniel Day-Lewis (12.20%)

Michael Caine (10.57%)

Tom Cruise (7.32%)

Samuel L. Jackson (4.88%)

Leonardo DiCaprio (4.88%)

Jeff Bridges (4.07%)

Brad Pitt (0.81%)

Bill Murray (0.81%)

Robert Duvall (0.81%)

Robert Downey, Jr. (0.81%)

Sean Penn (0.00%)

Eddie Murphy (0.00%)

Michael Keaton (0.00%)

See American Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Recipients

Starting in the early 1970s,...

Welcome back to Oscars Playback, in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng revisit Oscar ceremonies and winners of yesteryear. This week, we cover the 54th Academy Awards in 1982, honoring the films of 1981.

Thanks to its leading 12 nominations, most assumed Oscar night would be seeing red, er, “Reds” walk away with the top prize. Warren Beatty‘s ambitious historical epic netted him acting, directing, writing and producing nominations, the second time he achieved the feat after 1978’s “Heaven Can Wait,” but Beatty wound up only winning Best Director. Best Picture turned into a race between “Reds,” surprise hit “On Golden Pond” — the second highest-grossing film of the year and 10-time nominee — and Olympics drama “Chariots of Fire,” a seven-time nominee. Going into the final award, the three films had each won three Oscars. And in the kind of upset we see more in sports than awards shows,...

Who will the American Film Institute select as its 50th life achievement award recipient? Which top director is the most likely choice to be honored in 2025? After reviewing the possible choices, be sure to vote in our poll below as to who you think should be the best selection. We will host two more separate polls about your favorite choices for actresses and actors soon.

Since AFI will be celebrating their 50th ceremony, we’re hoping it will be an undeniably great choice!

Starting in the early 1970s, the AFI started choosing actors, actresses and directors with recipients being director John Ford (1973), actor James Cagney (1974), director/actor Orson Welles (1975), director William Wyler (1976), actress Bette Davis (1977), actor Henry Fonda (1978) and director Alfred Hitchcock (1979).

SEEAmerican Film Institute (AFI) Life Achievement Recipients

Past recipients still living (and therefore not eligible again) are: actor Jack Nicholson (1994), director Steven Spielberg (1995), actor/director Clint Eastwood (1996), director...

Welcome back to Oscars Playback, in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng revisit Oscar ceremonies and winners of yesteryear. In our Season 3 premiere, we cover the 53rd Academy Awards in 1981, honoring the films of 1980.

If you were waiting on pins and needles back then to see who would win, you had to wait an extra day. For the first time since 1968, the Oscars were postponed following the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Once the ceremony was underway, which included a video message from the actor-turned-potus taped weeks earlier, it was an extraordinary night for “Ordinary People.” The Robert Redford-helmed drama collected four awards, including Best Picture, but now receives undue hate as the film that beat Martin Scorsese‘s “Raging Bull.”

See Oscars Playback: Revisiting the 2010 ceremony when Kathryn Bigelow made history and Best Picture expanded to 10

It wasn’t a full sweep for “Ordinary People” though.

Sidney Lumet was the Oscar-nominated director who proved incredibly prolific during his career, directing over 40 movies in 50 years, from his feature debut “12 Angry Men” (1957) through his cinematic farewell “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” (2007). But how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born on June 25, 1924, Lumet got his start as a child actor, appearing in “One Third of a Nation” (1939) when he was 15 years old. After serving during WWII, he quickly began directing Off-Broadway plays before moving into the burgeoning medium of television, where he helmed hundreds of live teleplays. While working on episodes of “Playhouse 90,” “Kraft Theater” and many more, he honed his abilities to shoot quickly and economically.

His turned to movies with “12 Angry Men,” an adaptation of Reginald Rose‘s TV drama about a lone juror (Henry Fonda) holding out during a murder trial.

Walton Goggins has played gunslingers before. He’s been a renegade sheriff in The Hateful Eight, an outlaw on Justified, a Navy Seal on Six and a trigger-happy train robber in Shanghai Noon — but Fallout marks the first time he’s been two versions of one cowboy.

In Prime Video’s adaptation of the popular video game franchise, Goggins portrays Cooper Howard, a Hollywood Western has-been making ends meet as the lasso-spinning entertainment at kids’ parties. He’s also The Ghoul, a radioactive bounty hunter hardened by two centuries of wandering in a post-nuclear hellscape.

Set in 23rd century dystopian L.A. some 220 years after an atomic bomb decimated the U.S., the first season follows Lucy MacLean (Ella Purnell), an intrepid vault dweller who leaves her underground community in search of her kidnapped father (Kyle MacLachlan). Along the way, she meets The Ghoul and a soldier named Maximus (Aaron Moten...

How would you like to spend a special Father’s Day with your dad? Here’s a suggestion — why not sit down for a couple of hours and watch one of these movies that’s all about fathers, both terrific and horrible? Our ranked photo gallery above includes many fine suggestions, all of which feature an Oscar-winning performance by an actor who plays a father where that role was pivotal to the plot.

Though there are thousands of films in which one character happens to be a father, you won’t find them all on this list. Besides the fact that these 17 films contain a paternal performance that won an Academy Award, they show a wide array of what it means to be a father. There’s the courageous father, the inspirational dad, the loving father and even the monstrous father. Lead and supporting actors include Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Day-Lewis,...

Imagine you’re seeing a poster for a movie. With 12 people sitting in a courtroom, you see that the movie is of a crime/thriller genre. However, as you get closer to the image, the faces of the 12 people turn into absolute horror. Well… that is exactly what happened with Amazon and Prime Video.

12 Angry Men (1957) | Orion-Nova Productions

With the posters of classic movies being displayed on the Ott streaming service, fans were in for a little surprise. Well, that surprise turned into a nightmare as the usage of AI has become increasingly frustrating for people who prefer originality a bit more.

Amazon Prime Video And 12 Angry Men Scared Away The Viewers!

If you saw the above image, you are now a part of the 12 Angry Men discussion. The 1957 film was an adaptation of a 1954 teleplay by the same name. Despite the movie being more than 50 years old,...

Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) award-winning podcast The Plot Thickens will premiere season five, Decoding John Ford, on June 6, co-produced by Novel. Host Ben Mankiewicz strips back the mythology to reveal Ford's brilliance – alongside the often ugly, uncomfortable truths about his life and movies, asking whether we can ever truly separate art from the artist. This season features scores of never-before-heard archival interviews, including John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Woody Strode, and John Ford himself.

“John Ford is a mercurial figure. Not surprisingly given his stature, the stereotypes about Ford are incomplete,” said TCM Host Ben Mankiewicz. “This is a man defined by contradictions: he revered the military and envied those who served yet bristled at authority; Ford became known as one of Hollywood’s leading conservatives, yet one of his finest films is 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath, one of the most progressive films of classic...

Several top stars put their careers on hold and their lives on the line to serve during World War II including Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, Robert Taylor, Alan Ladd, William Holden, Robert Ryan and Robert Montgomery. And numerous young men who weren’t yet actors during the global conflict including Lee Marvin and Charles Durning saw action and suffered severe injuries.

With the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which was the largest amphibious invasion in military history with five naval assault divisions invading the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, let’s look at some actors who participated in the massive operation.

Charles Durning

The versatile character actor, who earned supporting actor Oscar nominations for 1982’s “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and 1983’s “To Be or Not to Be” and nine Emmy nominations, was just 21 when he was one of the first group of soldiers to land and...

Only 19 people have won the awards grand slam known as the Egot. They are (in chronological order of achievement) composer Richard Rodgers, actress Helen Hayes, actress Rita Moreno, actor John Gielgud, actress Audrey Hepburn, composer Marvin Hamlisch, orchestrator Jonathan Tunick, writer/director/composer Mel Brooks, director Mike Nichols, actress Whoopi Goldberg, producer Scott Rudin, composer Robert Lopez, singer and actor John Legend, composer Tim Rice, composer Andrew Lloyd

Webber, composer Alan Menken, actress/producer Jennifer Hudson, actress Viola Davis and composer Elton John.

There are a total of eight people who have won a combination of the Tony, Oscar and Grammy without an Emmy Award. The two living people are featured in this photo gallery because they could still achieve the Egot. They are composer Benj Pasek and composer Justin Paul.

The six deceased people are actor Henry Fonda, composer Oscar Hammerstein, composer Alan Jay Lerner, composer Frank Loesser, composer...

When Bernard Hill died recently, I wrote about the unique feeling accompanying the real-life death of an actor when that actor has been especially associated with a dramatic death scene onscreen. That feeling is only magnified when it’s been a very long time since the actor performed the demise in question. Juanita Moore, with her character’s funeral in 1959’s “Imitation of Life” being the grandest of any in the movies, only dying in real life in 2013 is an example.

One of the most extreme of these has just occurred, a death that also represents the severing of another critical link to Old Hollywood. Darryl Hickman died this past Wednesday, May 22, at the age of 92. He was a child actor in “The Prisoner of Zenda” and John Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath” who, upon exiting his teenage years, decided he wanted to become a monk. He entered a...

Morgan Freeman’s presence in movies usually attracts audience, but even his charisma and soothing voice could not save his 1998 action thriller film, Hard Rain. Directed by cinematographer-turned-director Mikael Salomon, the movie emerged as the biggest flop of that year.

Mikael Salomon’s Hard Rain / Paramount Pictures

On a more interesting note, fans who have seen the film were so angry they demanded to change the ending. They did not want the legendary icon’s character to die so the studio decided to do a reshoot.

Morgan Freeman Asked Fans Not To Watch Hard Rain

In an interview with The Guardian, actor Morgan Freeman shared his experience working on Mikael Salomon’s Hard Rain. Starring alongside Christian Slater and Minnie Driver, the actor said fans did not like the film to the point that they were forced to change its ending.

I played a bad guy in a movie, and...

As expansive and iconic as its title suggests, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West certainly seemed to be written in John Ford’s blood, from the vast wide-angle visions of Monument Valley that Leone and cinematographer Tonino Delli Colli luxuriated in, to the railroad-based, future-of-America economic landscape that serves as a backdrop to a number of bandit-versus-bandit power plays. Henry Fonda, with that methodical, stately stroll of his and those killer blue eyes barely visible from under the rim of his hat, can be seen and heard throughout, sending a shiver of great nostalgia up one’s spine. Ripened and tanned by years of desert sunlight, Ford’s Wyatt Earp is back in the saddle again.

But that particular pace and posture that Fonda had become known for in such films as My Darling Clementine, matched with the devious glint in those baby blues, now took...

Set during the Civil War, a long way from the front lines, Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned” continues the Italian helmer’s career-long examination of the rifts and affinities between overlooked segments of American society. Apart from one long, destabilizing battle with an unseen adversary, the portrayal is a relatively peaceful one, following a group of Union soldiers assigned to scout the Northwestern frontier in 1862. While the country is divided, this assignment brings together men of different backgrounds, fostering camaraderie and mutual respect.

This is the first period piece from the director of such unvarnished depictions of contemporary Southern life as “Stop the Pounding Heart” and “The Other Side,” and yet the quiet, occasionally poetic film feels like a natural extension of the themes and approach of Minervini’s earlier work. Even within the art-house sphere, it’s a bit too thin and plotless for most audiences. Still, “The Damned...

Henry Fonda earned his first Oscar nomination for his indelible turn as Tom Joad who becomes head of his family of Oklahoma tenant farmers in John Ford’s 1940 masterpiece “The Grapes of Wrath’ based on John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. And 44 years later, his two-time Oscar-winning daughter Jane Fonda had her “Grapes of Wrath” moment in the ABC Mother’s Day movie, “The Dollmaker.”

Based on Harriette Arnow’s 1954 novel of the same name, the three-hour drama set in the final two years of World War II, finds Fonda playing the indomitable Gertie Nevels, a caring, loving and uneducated mother of five. A sharecropper in Kentucky, Gertie dreams of owning her own farm and has saved enough money to buy one. Her husband (Levon Holm) isn’t much of a farmer but is good at fixing machines. When he gets a job as a mechanic at a factory in Detroit,...

To celebrate the release of Once Upon a Time in the West on 4K Ultra HD today, as part of a 4K Uhd & Blu-Ray Collector’s Edition, we have a Collector’s Edition to give away to a lucky winner!

Director Sergio Leone’s monumental Western classic Once Upon A Time In The West celebrates its 55th anniversary this year and to mark the occasion Paramount Home Entertainment will release the fully restored film for the first time on 4K Ultra HD on May 13, 2024, as part of a 4K Uhd & Blu-ray Collector’s Edition.

One of the most iconic and influential movies ever made, Once Upon A Time In The West has been restored from the original 35mm Techniscope camera negative by Paramount’s archive team, L’Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation. This restoration honours the 2007 Film Foundation photochemical restoration overseen by legendary director Martin Scorsese by matching its build and colour palette.