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 espe- cially big shadow across films like “The Brutalist,” “Gladiator II,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Conclave,” “A Real Pain” “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” “The Return” and even the comedy […]

Variety has selected its 10 Directors to Watch for 2025. In a fiercely competitive year, Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance”), Malcolm Washington (“The Piano Lesson”) and Halina Reijn (“Babygirl”) are among the filmmakers whose work earned them a place on the publication’s annual list. For 28 years, Variety has identified noteworthy up-and-coming directors making waves with […]

The Academy Awards are still months away but the best picture landscape is already taking shape. Some question marks remain — for example, both “Nosferatu” and the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” have yet to be widely seen. And the staying power of smaller indies like “A Real Pain” and “The Nickel Boys” has […]

The 2024 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival opened Nov. 8 with a screening of “Queen of the Ring,” writer-director Ash Avildsen’s biopic of female wrestler Mildred Burke starring Emily Bett Rickards, Josh Lucas, Walton Goggins and Gavin Casalegno. Marking the festival’s 39th year, the film commenced ten days of programming across seven South Florida venues, […]

Four and a half decades ago, the “Star Trek” franchise explored a new frontier: motion pictures. The soundtrack to that journey is getting beamed back into the hearts, minds and hands of its fans. On Nov. 15, Enjoy the Ride Records, in conjunction with Paramount Music, will release the 45th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of composer […]

By the time “Interview With the Vampire” hit theaters in 1994, the film had been in development for almost 20 years, seemingly with an obstacle or controversy for almost every one of them. Aided by producer David Geffen, only director Neil Jordan — riding high after the critical and commercial success of “The Crying Game” […]

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major plot details from the finale of HBO’s“The Penguin,” now streaming on Max. In the pantheon of television spinoffs of blockbuster films, “The Penguin” is an extraordinary achievement. The eponymous villain may be no Batman, but as played so deliciously by Colin Farrell and amplified by some truly remarkable prosthetics, few […]