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In 1934, the inimitable Bette Davis appeared in a film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage," a semi-autobiographical novel about the unfortunate loves of one Philip Carey. The 1934 film was directed by the prolific John Cromwell and starred Leslie Howard as Philip. Davis played Mildred Rogers, a tearoom waitress that Philip falls in love with, but who treats him with the utmost cruelty. It was a great role for Davis, who was only 26 at the time. 

An article in Collider points out that Davis was under contract with Warner Bros. at the time, but really, really wanted to play the part of Mildred, knowing that it was a juicy role. "Of Human Bondage" was being produced by Rko, and Davis would need WB's Jack Warner to loan her talents to Rko to work on the project. Davis...

When Humphrey Bogart appeared in the 1939 horror film “The Return of Doctor X” as a scientifically engineered vampire, he already had a couple of dozen movies behind him but was still two years away from becoming a true star with John Huston‘s “The Maltese Falcon.” As a contract player at Warner Bros., the studio that signed Bogart when he came there to reprise his stage role as Duke Mantee in “The Petrified Forest,” the actor was largely subject to the idiosyncratic whims of his bosses, and it was clear that they didn’t quite know what to do with Bogart before Huston got a hold of him.

In 1939 alone, he appeared in a Western “The Oklahoma Kid,” a tearjerking melodrama, and multiple gangster films. Several of these films are better remembered than “The Return of Doctor X,” but as Bogart’s only horror film, “X” is a fascinating curiosity,...

Marijuana is legal in 38 states, and now Cheech & Chong are in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. The country is going to pot!

Up in Smoke (1978), the first feature from Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, is one of the 25 “culturally, historically or aesthetically” motion pictures selected for preservation this year, it was announced Tuesday.

Among those also making the cut are Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), Invaders From Mars (1953), The Miracle Worker (1962), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Dirty Dancing (1987), Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt (1989), My Own Private Idaho (1991), No Country for Old Men (2007) and The Social Network (2010).

Five picks include prominent Hispanic artists or themes: American Me (1992), Mi Familia (1995) — both featuring the work of Edward James Olmos — Up in Smoke, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and Spy Kids (2001).

It’s a great day for Marin, who also starred in Spy Kids,...

There is no secret to making a classic movie. There's no tried-and-true formula or a can't-miss piece of source material that equates to a masterpiece provided you assemble the right director, writer(s), and actors. And as Francis Ford Coppola learned while making "The Godfather," there's no guarantee that, once you seemingly have all the right pieces in their right place, the studio will sit back and let you shoot your shot.

All-timers can also sneak up on you. Director Michael Curtiz thought he was making an escapist World War II entertainment when he took the reins on "Casablanca," but even though leads Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman didn't get along on set, he wound up knocking out a film many people consider to be the acme of Hollywood moviemaking. Alternately, when acclaimed director Robert Benton rolled cameras on Tom Stoppard's adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's "Billy Bathgate," one...

In the early 1950s, Hollywood introduced numerous widescreen formats in an effort to compete with the rise of television; the thinking was that the spectacle of CinemaScope, Cinerama, and other processes would give people incentive to leave their homes and return to the theater. Now, as exhibitors struggle with the rise of streaming and declining theater attendance, filmmaker Brady Corbet has revived the greatest of all widescreen formats and given today’s audiences the same reason to get off their couches that Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Curtiz, and other premier directors of their era gave in the 1950s.

Corbet opted to shoot “The Brutalist” in VistaVision, a process Paramount Pictures introduced in 1954 with the release of Michael Curtiz’s “White Christmas.” The format’s run was brief but glorious; it essentially fell out of regular use after Marlon Brando’s “One-Eyed Jacks” in 1961, but before that it was employed on several...

Since the first awards ceremony in 1929, the Academy Awards — colloquially known as the Oscars — have chosen the "best picture" in cinema every single year, with varying results. Still, a lot of the time, the Oscars at least gets it sort of right; to use a recent example, "The Shape of Water" is a good movie, but it was also competing against "Get Out" and "Lady Bird," so even a well-liked film like Guillermo del Toro's unexpected love story can spark a larger discussion about the Oscars and how they choose their winners. But I digress. Some of the historical best picture winners are (almost) universally beloved, with 99% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.

With acclaimed films like "Moonlight" and "Schindler's List" not far behind on Rotten Tomatoes' ranking of every best picture winner in Oscars history (both movies have a 98% rating), the following four films are, apparently, pretty close to perfect.

The second season of "Star Trek: Picard" started promisingly, but ran out of steam pretty quickly. At the start of the season, the impish all-power trickster Q (John de Lancie) appears to an elderly Admiral Picard (Patrick Stewart) and announces that he'd like to play a game. Q then teleports Picard to an alternate timeline, very much like the Mirror Universe, where everyone is evil. Earth has become a galactic force for tyranny and spends all its resources hunting and killing all other living beings in the galaxy. Picard finds that his alternate self is a dangerous general who keeps a collection of skulls belonging to his fallen foes. 

Picard gathers his closest compatriots, also all transported into the Fascist Timeline, and aims to travel back in time to the point where the fascist regime began. Something happened, he finds, in the year 2024, and he needs to investigate the streets...

The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film in the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery above features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

The worst among 96 Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film on the bottom of the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery below features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

Why all the outrage over the apparent slighting of Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2”? There’s the limited theatrical release, no advertising, and initial absence from Warner Bros. Discovery’s awards page, for a film with strong reviews and audience response — but good grief, has everyone at that studio forgotten what they owe Eastwood’s legacy?

The Warners-Eastwood relationship is unparalleled in Hollywood history. It also represents a way of doing business that Warners no longer cares to apply to its creative relationships — or at least, doesn’t care if that’s the community’s takeaway, which may be the same thing.

Since 1971, Eastwood made 46 films for Warners as a director and/or actor and/or producer. IndieWire wants to make the case that Eastwood has been the most important creative component in the studio’s history — financially, and arguably, critically.

If that seems extreme, consider this. All told, his 46 Warners films have a worldwide gross,...

As long as there are rapacious billionaires and corrupt politicians hoarding wealth and making life miserable for the less fortunate, there will always be a need for the Robin Hood folk tale. The Sherwood Forest-dwelling outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor has been depicted in films since Douglas Fairbanks slung a bow over his shoulder and strapped on a spiffy pair of tights in the 1922 landmark silent production "Robin Hood." Michael Curtiz delivered what still stands as the platonic ideal of a Robin Hood movie in 1938 with the Errol Flynn-starring "The Adventures of Robin Hood," but there have been other worthy takes on the character over the years, most notably Disney's 1973 animated film "Robin Hood" and Richard Lester's poignant 1976 romance "Robin and Marian" starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn.

For most modern audiences, the most well-known rendition of the Robin Hood saga...

Those who were driving through the intersection of Highland and Fountain in Los Angeles in the early 2000s got to know Tommy Wiseau very, very well. It was at that intersection that Wiseau chose to buy a billboard for his then-new film "The Room," and it featured a rather unflattering closeup of the man, staring directly into the camera, one of his eyes half-closed. The billboard stayed up for five straight years, costing Wiseau $5,000 a month.

It worked, though. Enough Angelenos drove past the billboard to become curious about "The Room" and seek out a screening at the Sunset 5 theater nearby. Those who saw it in those early days were utterly baffled. "The Room" is an intense infidelity drama about an all-around good guy named Johnny (Wiseau) whose fiancée Lisa (Juliette Danielle) instigates an affair with Johnny's best friend Mark (Greg Sestero). The film, however, is so weirdly scripted and...

A Hungarian silent film once thought lost, “After Death” (“A halál után”), will premiere at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, thanks to a restoration initiative led by Hungary’s National Film Institute (Nfi).

The only surviving copy of the 1920 crime thriller directed by Alfréd Dicy, one of the pioneers of Hungarian cinema, was found in Belgium’s Royal Film Archive. Its restoration was completed through collaboration between Belgium, Hungary and France, with support from the E.U.’s Creative Europe Media program.

“After Death” is just one of several films on Hungary’s “Most Wanted List,” which was launched in 2021 to recover early Hungarian films. So far, about a dozen from the list have been found and restored.

The oldest on the list, “The Dance” (“A Táncz”), dating back to 1901, is considered to be Hungary’s first film. It showcases Hungarian dancers, and was part of a presentation that...

With Janus possessing the much-needed restorations, Catherine Breillat is getting her biggest-ever spotlight in November’s Criterion Channel series spanning 1976’s A Real Young Girl to 2004’s Anatomy of Hell––just one of numerous retrospectives arriving next month. They’re also spotlighting Ida Lupino, directorial efforts of John Turturro (who also gets an “Adventures In Moviegoing”), the Coen brothers, and Jacques Audiard.

In a slightly more macroscopic view, Columbia Noir and a new edition of “Queersighting” ring in Noirvember. Gregg Araki’s Teen Apocalypse trilogy and Miller’s Crossing get Criterion Editions, while restorations of David Bowie-starrer The Linguini Incident, Med Hondo’s West Indies, and Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue make streaming debuts; and Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park arrives just in time for another grim election day.

See the full list of titles arriving in November below:

36 fillette, Catherine Breillat, 1988

Anatomy of Hell, Catherine Breillat,...

Prior to "Gilligan's Island" in 1964, Tina Louise was already a long-working actress. Indeed, Louise worked her first modeling gig at the age of two, appearing in an ad campaign for her father's candy store. In high school, she started studying acting, and landed her first professional gig in 1956, appearing in an episode of the TV series "Studio One." She made her feature film debut in Anthony Mann's celebrated drama "God's Little Acre," in which Louise played Griselda, the wife of a character played by Jack Lord. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. 

Louise went on to star in other high-profile film projects, including Michael Curtiz's "The Hangman," and the 1960 Italian historical epic "The Siege of Syracuse," in which she played three different roles. Louise also played the poet Sappho in a film called "The Warrior Empress." In 1964, she appeared in a film called "For Those Who Think Young,...

Director Todd Phillips returns with the highly anticipated sequel to his controversial 2019 Dceu adventure, Joker. The new film, Joker: Folie à Deux, brings back Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, the mentally disturbed criminal who becomes the Joker. Joining Phoenix is the iconic Lady Gaga (A Star is Born) as Harley Quinn, while Zazie Beetz reprises her role, albeit all too briefly, from the first movie. Irish actor Brendan Gleeson and Catherine Keener add gravitas to the cast.

Joker: Folie à Deux delves deeper into Arthur’s descent into madness, set against Gotham City’s criminal underworld. With a musical twist, Phoenix and Gaga share several striking performances together.

The story follows Arthur navigating life in Arkham Asylum five years after the first film’s events. His Joker persona becomes central to a legal battle where his lawyer (Keener) argues for his mental instability, while district attorney Harvey Dent seeks the death penalty.

With Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited “Megalopolis” now playing in theaters, many cinephiles have been dazzled and baffled in equal measures by the sprawling passion project. But even if the film itself is polarizing, there’s no denying that it reflects Coppola’s unending passion for cinema and a lifetime spent studying history and art.

Those interested in learning more about Coppola’s unique tastes will be thrilled to find that the “Apocalypse Now” director is this month’s guest picker for Turner Classic Movies. IndieWire can exclusively reveal that the auteur has given his stamp of approval to four iconic films airing on the cable channel in October: James Whale’s “The Bride of Frankenstein,” Michael Curtiz and William Keighley’s “The Adventures of Robin Hood,” Orson Welles’ “The Magnificent Ambersons,” and Marcel Camus’ “Black Orpheus.”

Following in the footsteps of Steven Spielberg and Guillermo del Toro, Coppola elaborated...

Alan Hale Jr. was a showbiz veteran before he could speak. The son of Alan Hale, a popular character actor best known for his portrayal of Little John in Michael Curtiz' classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood," Hale Jr. appeared in silent films as a baby and made a few war movies as a young man before serving in the United States Coast Guard during World War II. Once the war was over, Hale Jr. worked steadily in film and television, turning up on episodes of "Gunsmoke," "Mister Ed," and "Lassie" while landing supporting roles in movies starring John Wayne, Gregory Peck, and Randolph Scott.

Hale Jr. would be castigated as a nepobaby today, but while being literally born to the business didn't hurt his cause, he was a natural in front of the camera and a welcome presence in just about everything. So, it's no surprise that, after a difficult casting process,...

Director Ridley Scott is back in the Oscars conversation with a film that hearkens back to his biggest Oscar success: “Gladiator II,” the long-awaited sequel to his 2000 Best Picture winner “Gladiator.” But despite the awards success of that 24-year-old blockbuster film, Scott himself didn’t get to go along for the ride. He lost Best Director in one of the most fascinating races that category has ever seen. Scott, now 86, has a chance to receive an overdue trophy and become the oldest filmmaker ever to prevail.

See‘Gladiator II’ trailer: Paul Mescal enters the arena in Ridley Scott’s epic sequel [Watch]

To date, Scott has been nominated for four Oscars. Three of those were for Best Director: “Thelma and Louise” (1991), “Gladiator” and “Black Hawk Down” (2001), though “Gladiator” was the only one of those three films to receive a Best Picture nomination. Helming the Best Picture front-runner that year automatically made...

Film critic Andrew Sarris changed his profession forever when he introduced, to English-speaking cinephiles at least, the concept of “auteur theory.” The general conceit is that some rarified directors are so gifted, or commanding, in their control over the process of film production that they alone can give a film a “personal or unique stamp.” They are the ones who become the author of the movie you’re watching. If anyone. It’s a seductive theory which encourages the critic to look for points of narrative, visual, or thematic similarity between a filmmaker’s work. The more ideas or images that rhyme, the potentially more impressive the auteur’s command over the medium becomes.

However, while it is hard to dispute the existence of auteurs, the concept at times devalues the contributions of a film’s many other collaborators—especially if they’re, say, editors, production designers, or cinematographers a...

Let’s face it, streaming services have lost a lot of their appeal. Between their ever shifting libraries, their kneecapping of theaters, and their tendency to overwhelm viewers with substandard garbage, it’s hard to be excited about our streaming present. Heck, most services now play the same couple of ads over and over, even for paying customers!

With every annoying insurance ad and every movie suddenly shoved from a service you bought to a different service you don’t have, Tubi looks better and better. Tubi is one of many free streaming services available online. Like most other services, free or otherwise, Tubi interrupts the programming with occasional ads.

But Tubi also has an outstanding library, one that rivals Max, with its oft-threatened TCM and Ghibli channels. Still, Tubi can be overwhelming to some users, who can’t always see the gems alongside stinkers such as Big Stan (starring Rob Schneider!

He was one of the biggest screen icons and one of the most colorful real-life characters in Hollywood history. Still considered the king of swashbucklers more than 60 years after his death, Errol Flynn’s success was a combination of happenstance, luck and his ability to charm.

Errol Leslie Flynn was born on June 20, 1909, in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia to an affluent family. A natural born rascal, he was thrown out of several private schools, and eventually wandered, working odd jobs. He fell into acting quite by chance when he won the role of Fletcher Christian in the Australian film “In the Wake of the Bounty” (1933). There are conflicting stories of how he landed this part, but it is the film that piqued his interest in acting, and eventually caught the attention of Warner Bros. executives.

In Hollywood, a combination of luck and Flynn’s athleticism and charm landed him the lead...

Thanks to Baz Luhrmann's electrifying 2022 biopic "Elvis," fans new and old (some very old at this point) have enthusiastically delved into the cultural icon's past to get a more nuanced understanding of how this Tennessee-born mama's career took so many unexpected turns before he collapsed in a pharmaceutically-induced heap at the age of 42.

Every chapter of Presley's life is packed with decisions both brilliant and personally/professionally self-destructive. Indeed, his tragic arc might just be the definitive showbiz cautionary tale. His was an incandescent (if highly derivative) talent that attracted opportunists and admirers; he was treated as a product, and, thus, had an awful tendency to treat those who genuinely loved him with the respect and tenderness they deserved.

Speaking of tenderness, Presley's value as an entertainment commodity was, at its early peak, so dizzyingly high that he could work around his newly signed contract with Paramount Pictures...

Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 neorealist drama is unsparing in its depiction of the heavy price of both resistance and collaboration with the Nazi occupation

Roberto Rossellini’s 1945 film is a blazingly urgent and painful bulletin from the frontline of Italy’s historical agony: the Axis power that had belatedly turned against the Mussolini fascists only to be humiliatingly occupied by Nazi Germany on whose orders the dictator was reinstalled in the northern Salò puppet state, resplendent in contemptible impotence and pathos, with Rome at its defeated and compromised centre. It was a film that used the so-recently-devastated real streets and people of Rome on location for a project on which Rossellini started script work well before the end of the war, building on ideas by screenwriter Sergio Amidei with dialogue contribution by the young Federico Fellini.

Rome, Open City is revived as part of the BFI Southbank’s Chasing the Real season of Italian neorealism,...

The character of Tom Ripley first appeared in Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel "The Talented Mr. Ripley," a salacious story about a con man who is hired to locate an old school chum named Dickie Greenleaf but who ends up becoming obsessed with him, killing him, and supplanting him. Ripley is not a charming con man, but he is staggeringly clever and possesses a talent for subterfuge. He's also driven by his baser desires, unable to resist pursuing the women and men he lusts after (Ripley is likely bisexual) or stealing the money he so desperately wants. Each time, Ripley gets away with it, as evidenced by the fact that he starred in five novels published through to 1991.

A critic once pointed out that Tom Ripley's character arc is a direct inversion of traditional storytelling. A typical crime novel protagonist will learn new things as the story progresses and then use...

Cinephiles will have plenty to celebrate this April with the next slate of additions to the Criterion Channel. The boutique distributor, which recently announced its June 2024 Blu-ray releases, has unveiled its new streaming lineup highlighted by an eclectic mix of classic films and modern arthouse hits.

Students of Hollywood history will be treated to the “Peak Noir: 1950” collection, which features 17 noir films from the landmark film year from directors including Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston.

New Hollywood maverick William Friedkin will also be celebrated when five of his most beloved movies, including “Sorcerer” and “The Exorcist,” come to the channel in April.

Criterion will offer the streaming premiere of Wim Wenders’ 3D art documentary “Anselm,” which will be accompanied by the “Wim Wenders’ Adventures in Moviegoing” collection, which sees the director curating a selection of films from around the world that have influenced his careers.

Contemporary cinema is also well represented,...

April’s an uncommonly strong auteurist month for the Criterion Channel, who will highlight a number of directors––many of whom aren’t often grouped together. Just after we screened House of Tolerance at the Roxy Cinema, Criterion are showing it and Nocturama for a two-film Bertrand Bonello retrospective, starting just four days before The Beast opens. Larger and rarer (but just as French) is the complete Jean Eustache series Janus toured last year. Meanwhile, five William Friedkin films and work from Makoto Shinkai, Lizzie Borden, and Rosine Mbakam are given a highlight.

One of my very favorite films, Comrades: Almost a Love Story plays in a series I’ve been trying to program for years: “Hong Kong in New York,” boasting the magnificent Full Moon in New York, Farewell China, and An Autumn’s Tale. Wim Wenders gets his “Adventures in Moviegoing”; After Hours, Personal Shopper, and Werckmeister Harmonies fill...

The Greek provocateur seemed to be smiling throughout Oscar night. In the past he’d delivered films with titles like Dogtooth and The Lobster, and his newest, Poor Things, was now stockpiling the statuary even as Hollywood’s filmmaking elite looked on, perplexed.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ code-busting Poor Things was winning not only successive awards (four in all) Sunday but also the exuberant applause from an audience that seemed to welcome change. Even chaotic change.

Oppenheimer won the big prize on Oscar night, of course, but Oscar voters once again demonstrated their support for the product of the filmmaking underclass. The Scorsese-Spielberg-Ridley Scott fraternity looked on while dark horses like Lanthimos, or, a year earlier, the Daniels (Kwan and Scheinert) from Everything Everywhere All at Once, stole the action. Coda from Sian Heder was the surprise of 2022.

Does all this reflect a restive mood? “The power of Poor Things stems...

Anne Whitfield, who appeared at age 15 in the 1954 Hollywood Christmas chestnut White Christmas and went on to a prolific career in episodic TV throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, died February 15 at a hospital in Yakima, Washington. She was 85.

The actor, whose TV credits stretch from I Married Joan and Father Knows Best through The Six Million Dollar Man and Adam-12, suffered what her family describes as an “unexpected accident” during a walk in her neighborhood.

“Through the kindness of neighbors who provided expert medical support, family had the gift to say goodbye and express love and gratitude, a gift we will always cherish,” her family said.

Born August 27, 1938, in Oxford, Mississippi, Whitfield was four years old when she moved to Hollywood with her mother Frances Turner Whitfield, who served as the aspiring child performer’s agent and acting coach. By age 7 Whitfield was appearing on such radio series as...

Anne Whitfield, who appeared in the beloved holiday classic White Christmas and on dozens of TV shows, from Father Knows Best, 77 Sunset Strip and Perry Mason to That Girl, Ironside and Emergency!, has died. She was 85.

Whitfield died Feb. 7 at a hospital in Yakima, Washington, after suffering an “unexpected accident” while on a walk in her neighborhood, family members announced.

“She was a powerhouse in life, and we hope her immense positive energy flows out to those who had the pleasure of knowing her,” they wrote.

Whitfield was 15 and had done lots of acting on the radio when she was cast as Susan Waverly, the granddaughter of Dean Jagger’s Major Gen. Thomas F. Waverly — “The Old Man” — in the Michael Curtiz-directed Paramount musical White Christmas (1954). The film starred Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.

She got to watch White Christmas with her family on the...

For so many reasons, George Lucas' 1977 "Star Wars" is a revolutionary film. Like any game-changer, some of the ways in which "Star Wars" re-shaped the cinematic landscape couldn't have been predicted; its ushering in a huge wave of big budget sci-fi/fantasy films, its one-two punch with "Jaws" establishing the summer blockbuster, its use of Joseph Campbell-inspired myth making shaping the way so many screenplays would be written for the next few decades, and so on.

However, some of the innovations created by "Star Wars" were very visible while it was being made, none more so than by Lucas himself. In addition to gathering together a cadre of visual-effects pioneers and wizards who could make his vision a reality on screen (a coterie later dubbed Industrial Light & Magic), Lucas faced the problem of making sure their work could be seen in its best light, literally. As Paul Hirsch, one of...

The Academy Awards grew up at the 16th annual ceremony March 2, 1944. Since the first Oscar ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt’s Blossom Room in 1929, the Academy Awards were small banquet ceremonies for La La Land movers and shakers. But that all changed 80 years ago. World War II was in its third year and movies meant more than ever to war-weary audiences.

So, the Oscars moved to the then-Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and bleachers were introduced giving fans a chance to see their favorites walk the red carpet. And instead of a select industry audience, attendees included members of all branches of the armed services many of whom sat in bleachers on the stage at the Chinese. The ceremony was heard locally on Kfwb; Jack Benny hosted the international broadcast for the troops on CBS Radio via shortwave. And for the first time, supporting performers finally received a full-size Academy Award.

The moment Elvis Presley stepped in front of the camera for his second appearance on "The Milton Berle Show" in 1956, there was no doubt that this young man was destined for more than pop music superstardom. Much more.

Conversationally, he was downright adorable with his boyish good looks and aw-shucks Southern shyness, but once the music kicked in he was transformed into a hunk of burning lust. That gyrating pelvis and run-riot voice spurred sexual awakenings in living rooms across the country (in full view of outraged parents). To teenagers, Elvis belted out a call to rebellion. To parents, he was a pompadoured incubus. To Hollywood, he was singing, swaggering box-office gold.

Between 1956 and 1972, Elvis starred in 31 features and two concert films. There were lulls (particularly when his popularity faded prior to his 1968 comeback special), but for the most part Elvis reliably packed 'em in. According to producer Hal B. Wallis...

Movies and television have been competing for the same audience's time and money since TV was invented, but they've also formed a strange symbiosis. There have been a heck of a lot of movies based on TV shows, and a heck of a lot of TV shows based on movies.

Some of those shows based on movies have been major pop culture milestones, like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "The Karate Kid," and "Friday Night Lights." And of course a whole lot of been almost completely forgotten, like the sitcoms based on "Dirty Dancing," "Working Girl," and "Animal House."

But one thing these TV shows usually have in common is that they're almost always based on a hit movie. It's not surprising when a blockbuster like "M*A*S*H" or "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" gets turned into a television series. It's even common for smaller, but critically acclaimed films...

Martin Scorsese is famous for his collaborations with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the first feature-length film with all three, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” has become a critical and commercial success. It’s not unusual for a director to find a “favorite” actor and form a successful relationship. In fact, this practice goes back to the beginning of the industry.

In 1912, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith cast 18-year-old Lillian Gish in his short film “An Unseen Enemy,” and the two worked on more than 40 short and feature-length productions over the next decade. One of the most famous scenes from the silent era is in their film “Way Down East,” in which Gish floats unconscious on an ice floe; she had lifelong nerve damage in several fingers as a result of her performance in that scene.

SEEMartin Scorsese movies: All 26 films ranked worst to best

During the Golden Age of Hollywood,...

Martin Scorsese is famous for his collaborations with Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the first feature-length film with all three, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” has become a critical and commercial success. It’s not unusual for a director to find a “favorite” actor and form a successful relationship. In fact, this practice goes back to the beginning of the industry.

In 1912, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith cast 18-year-old Lillian Gish in his short film “An Unseen Enemy,” and the two worked on more than 40 short and feature-length productions over the next decade. One of the most famous scenes from the silent era is in their film “Way Down East,” in which Gish floats unconscious on an ice floe; she had lifelong nerve damage in several fingers as a result of her performance in that scene.

During the Golden Age of Hollywood, there were quite a few famous collaborations,...

The end of the Hollywood studio system in the late 1950s is an oft-mourned loss by anyone who spends an inordinate amount of time watching Turner Classic Movies or browsing the tiles on the Criterion Channel. Hollywood still makes great movies all the time, of course, but what has been lost is the volume of modest and unassuming but expertly crafted mid-range genre films. What made the classical era unique wasn’t the groundbreaking art of an Alfred Hitchcock or a John Ford; every age has its titans, and one could argue that in just the past few months we’ve had several Hollywood movies as bold and distinctive as any in the industry’s past.

What the now-defunct studio system gave us was a robust slate of movies from directors whose names were not known to the general public — directors like Michael Curtiz, Mitchell Leisen, Budd Boetticher, and several...

Filmmaker Alexander Payne doesn’t exactly have the corner on curmudgeonly Paul Giamatti performances, or unexpected road trip movies that result in deeply emotional bonds, or stories about found families, or even tales about high school teachers who really, really need to get their lives in order. Still, those do tend to be his most recognizable hallmarks.

They’re all on display in his latest, the Christmastime dramedy “The Holdovers,” which stars Paul Giamatti as, yes, a curmudgeonly high school teacher who needs to get his life in order, and ends up (sort of) doing that by way of an unexpected road trip and the forging of a found family (including Da’Vine Joy Randolph and newbie Dominic Sessa).

“The Holdovers” sounds like pure Payne, right? It is, but it’s also a David Hemingson effort, with the longtime television writer picking up his first film credit with the script, which...

(Welcome to Did They Get It Right?, a series where we look at Oscars categories from yesteryear and examine whether the Academy's winners stand the test of time.)

Making a movie is hard. A shocking statement, I know. When you direct a film, you are utilizing a tremendous amount of your time and energy to devote to a project that more often than not takes years of your life. So, when a director releases two films in the same year, I'm always impressed that they had the bandwidth to turn these films around so quickly. The rarest of the rare, though, is when the director gets nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Director for multiple films within the same year.

The first was at the 2nd ceremony, when Frank Lloyd received three of the seven nominations for "Drag," "Weary River," and "The Divine Lady," for which he won. The...

These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.

James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...

Tyrannical and brilliant, director Michael Curtiz created film legends out of mere stars, and turned movies into myth. Here are some of his greatest films.

When movie enthusiasts think of legendary director Michael Curtiz, the first thing that pops into their mind is Casablanca (1942), consistently named to, and occasionally topping, lists of the greatest films of all time. Although if we’re being honest, most people think of it as a Humphrey Bogart movie. The same could be said of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). These are known for their stars, James Cagney, and Errol Flynn, the latter of whom Curtiz put on the map with Captain Blood (1935). In the director’s hands, actors and characters merged into a mythology which exceeded mere signature roles, becoming universal symbols.

Curtiz worked in the motion picture business from its infancy, but began in the theater, graduating Budapest’s...

Some movies are so iconic it’s hard to imagine that they were originally going to be radically different. Elvis Presley‘s movie Jailhouse Rock once had a completely different title. One of Elvis’ regular songwriters revealed why the film’s initial name was abandoned. In addition, he discussed what he thought about Jailhouse Rock.

Elvis Presley’s movie ‘Jailhouse Rock’ could have been called ‘Ghost of a Chance’

Mike Stoller co-wrote several Elvis tunes, including “Hound Dog,” “Bossa Nova Baby,” “Little Egypt,” and “Jailhouse Rock.” During a 2022 interview with Variety, Stoller revealed the first title of the movie Jailhouse Rock was abandoned in favor of the title of his song.

“I think [the original title] was Ghost of a Chance,” he said. “That changed, I think, as soon as they heard the initial recording. Which is not the one in the film, because the one in the film was blown out and had a bigger orchestra.

In 1957, Elvis Presley began working with Michael Curtiz, the esteemed director of Casablanca. At this point, Curtiz was an Academy Award-winning director, and Elvis was primarily a musician with only three films on his acting resume. Curtiz fully expected to dislike him. When they began working together, though, the director found that he liked Elvis far more than he had anticipated.

Elvis Presley impressed a director who had expected to dislike him

Elvis dove headfirst into preparing for King Creole, believing that the role could be majorly beneficial to his acting career. While Elvis was optimistic about the part, Curtiz wasn’t happy that he had to direct a relatively inexperienced actor. Elvis worked to prove himself to the director, though.

“You just didn’t have a lot of fooling around with Curtiz — I mean, he would embarrass the hell out of you,” Elvis’ co-star Jan Shepard said in the...

HQ7 Studios will initially have two fully soundproofed stages.

Construction is underway on a €10m production complex on the outskirts of Vienna that will launch in the first quarter of 2024.

The HQ7 Studios will initially consist of two fully soundproofed stages with an area of 2,000 and 1,000m2 respectively.

There are plans to build another two stages between 2,000 and 2,500m2, while a third phase of construction may also see space later being made available for outside sets at the studio lot.

In addition, HQ7 will have 2,000m2 available as ancillary office and workshop space.

Speaking to Screen, HQ7’s managing director...

Everyone loves a good cinematic love story. But for those of us who aren’t living our happily ever afters with the loves of our lives, it can be hard to watch a swoon-worthy romance on Netflix without feeling a bit wistful and sad. That’s particularly true if you’re dealing with a case of the break-up blues.

Thankfully, no one is truly alone alone in front of a TV screen. As long as there have been romance films, there have been break-up films; movies that capture the pain and anguish of a relationship dying, leaving those involved picking up the pieces.

One of the most acclaimed American classics of all time, Michael Curtiz’s “Casablanca,” is at its core a story about having to say goodbye to the person you love. The destruction of relationships or marriages has proven fertile ground for modern directors as well, from Noah Baumbach...

It was more than a little heartening to see Roger Corman paid tribute by Quentin Tarantino at Cannes’ closing night. By now the director-producer-mogul’s imprint on cinema is understood to eclipse, rough estimate, 99.5% of anybody who’s touched the medium, but on a night for celebrating what’s new, trend-following, and manicured it could’ve hardly been more necessary. Thus I’m further heartened seeing the Criterion Channel will host a retrospective of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations running eight films and aptly titled “Grindhouse Gothic,” though I might save the selections for October.

Centerpiece, though, is a hip hop series including Bill Duke’s superb Deep Cover, Ghost Dog, and numerous documentaries––among them Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, making Michael Rapaport a Criterion-approved auteur. Ten films starring Kay Francis and 21 Eurothrillers round out series; streaming premieres include the Dardenne brothers’ Tori and Lokita,...

I honestly never expected Steven Spielberg in a Criterion Channel series––certainly not one that pairs him with Kogonada, anime, and Johnny Mnemonic––but so’s the power of artificial intelligence. Perhaps his greatest film (at this point I don’t need to tell you the title) plays with After Yang, Ghost in the Shell, and pre-Matrix Keanu in July’s aptly titled “AI” boasting also Spike Jonze’s Her, Carpenter’s Dark Star, and Computer Chess. Much more analog is a British Noir collection obviously carrying the likes of Odd Man Out, Night and the City, and The Small Back Room, further filled by Joseph Losey’s Time Without Pity and Basil Dearden’s It Always Rains on Sunday. (No two ways about it: these movies have great titles.) An Elvis retrospective brings six features, and the consensus best (Don Siegel’s Flaming Star) comes September 1.

While Isabella Rossellini...

Director Taika Waititi has been on the scene for over 20 years, making a splash with an Academy Award-nominated short film before heading off to Sundance with 2007’s quirky indie Eagle vs Shark. From there, he helmed one of the funniest mockumentaries ever in What We Do in the Shadows before landing one of the most prestigious jobs in Hollywood, directing for Marvel. Oh, and there’s an Oscar in there somewhere, too…But what will it all amount to? In a new profile, that’s just what he’s worried about.

Speaking with The Hollywood Reporter, director Taika Waititi said, “I’m 47. My God, take the pressure off. People are so obsessed with likes or leaving behind a legacy, being remembered. Here’s the thing: No one’s going to remember us. What’s the name of the director of Casablanca? Arguably one of the greatest films of all time.

Taika Waititi isn’t trying to build a legacy despite already having one.

The “Next Goal Wins” writer-director reflected on his career in a Hollywood Reporter cover story, pointing out that even Michael Curtiz, the filmmaker behind “Casablanca,” has been forgotten by many more than a half-century after helming one of the greatest films of all time. To Waititi, nothing is forever.

“I’m 47. My God, take the pressure off,” Waititi said. “People are so obsessed with likes or leaving behind a legacy, being remembered. Here’s the thing: No one’s going to remember us. What’s the name of the director of ‘Casablanca’? Arguably one of the greatest films of all time. No one knows his name. How the fuck do I expect to be remembered? So who cares?”

Waititi won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2020 for “Jojo Rabbit” and is tapped to direct a “Star Wars...

Distribution

Anthony Lapaglia‘s upcoming factual series “The Black Hand” is set to be distributed internationally by eOne.

The three-part series will explore Australia’s Italian community, looking at the difficulties they face, their politics, the threat of war and the mafia. According to the series synopsis, The Black Hand is the name for a gang of Italian criminals in Australia.

Alan Erson, Lapaglia, Michael Tear exec produce. Adam Grossetti and Kate Pappas produce. “The Black Hand” is directed by Kriv Stenders and written by Grossetti, Stenders and Anya Beyersdorf.

The series was produced by Wildbear Entertainment for ABC in Australia. The deal with eOne excludes Australia and Scandinavia.

“The Black Hand is truly the definition of premium factual,” said Kate Cundall, eOne’s VP for acquisitions. “We’re very excited about the opportunity to take to market a hugely popular genre like true crime with some amazing auspicious.”

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Meanwhile,...