Movies

Good afternoon Insiders, welcome back, Max Goldbart here with your weekly dose of news as the Oscars gets a step closer. Scroll on. And sign up here. ‘Emilia’ Marches On Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection Records tumbling: As was widely expected, French musical crime drama Emilia Pérez could be in for a record-breaking Oscar night in a

EXCLUSIVE: Sundance prize-winning filmmaker Sophie Hyde (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) says casting “a version of yourself” is not an easy task. “It’s very tricky to do,” says Hyde, director of Jimpa, which is premiering today at Park City’s Eccles. It’s a film that sublimely explores what constitutes the makeup of family in our era. From

Fernanda Torres landed a Best Actress nomination this morning from the American Academy for her leading turn in Walter Salles’s latest I’m Still Here.  Torres is only the second Brazilian actress to receive an Oscar nomination. The first was her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, who was nominated in 1999 for Central Station, also directed by Salles. 

Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande will be in the skies, defying gravity, when Oscar nominations are announced Thursday morning. Both depart from London in the morning, UK time. Erivo, who plays Elphaba in the hit Universal musical movie, says she’ll be en route from London to Park City, where the Sundance Film Festival will honor

The second iteration of The Inclusion List from Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has identified the 150 most inclusive films from 2019 to 2023, adding to its initial class of 100 films by naming 50 new titles for the year 2023. Four films from that year have made it into

French film and TV production and distribution group Newen Studios is rebranding as Studio TF1 and expanding its cinema activities, the company’s managing director Pierre Branco has announced. Former Warner Bros Discovery exec Pierre Branco, who took the reins at Newen Studios last April, detailed the upcoming changes at the TF1 Group subsidiary in an

Amazon-owned IMDb, a longtime digital repository of movie, TV and celebrity information, is shuffling its top exec, with founder Col Needham passing the CEO baton to Nikki Santoro. Needham will segue to the role of founder and executive chair. Santoro has been COO of IMDb since 2021. The transition marks a significant changing of the

Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s animated debut feature film Look Back, based on the best-selling manga by Tatuski Fujimoto, is a heartfelt coming-of-age drama that has resonated with moviegoers and at home audiences globally, amassing more than $12 million worldwide and landing a spot on Prime Video. At just under an hour, Look Back follows the popular Ayumi

Prime Video Japan has a new Country Manager in the shape of Keisuke Oishi. Effective today, the former Sony Corp exec will take on the post after rising through the ranks over ten years at Amazon. Oishi will report to Gaurav Gandhi, Vice President of Prime Video for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. He

Refresh for latest…: As it’s early January, we are still largely in holdover mode. But that shouldn’t discount the performance of those movies that released at the end of last year and are still doing solid business. Among them are Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King and Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Also, as previously noted,

El 47 (“the 47”) triumphed at the Catalan Film Awards Saturday evening, taking eight prizes including one for Best Picture. The film previously won two Forqué Awards and has 14 nominations for the Goya Awards. It also took home Catalan Film Awards for Best Leading Actor (Eduard Fernandez) and Best Supporting Actress (Clara Segura) as

EXCLUSIVE: Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two leads the nominations at this year’s Online Film Critics Society Awards. Scroll down for the lists in full. Dune: Part Two clocked nine noms. The haul includes nods in the Best Picture, Best Directing, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Chasing Villeneuve’s sci-fi sequel is Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (8), Edward

UPDATED, 5:41 p.m.: This year’s AFI Awards luncheon will now take place on Thursday, February 6, AFI President and CEO Bob Gazzale announced on Friday evening. Like many award shows around town, they’d been delayed by the L.A. wildfires, which continue to approach containment. The luncheon had previously been dated for Friday, January 10. “With

EXCLUSIVE: Korean action star Jang Hyuk is set to make his directorial and writing debut with action film Stop Stop Dark Cold, alongside Stars Collective and Stars Entertainment. Jang Hyuk has played roles in films like Volcano High, The Swordsman, The Killer and Iris 2 as well as shows like Slave Hunters and Bloody Heart.

Here’s the second Insider of the year, as things grind back into gear. Jesse Whittock here to take you through the top international TV and film news. I’ll also take this time to send out love to friends, colleagues and counterparts in L.A. impacted by the devastating fires. ‘Dick Turpin’s Demise Turpin hurtin’: Noel Fielding’s

EXCLUSIVE: With Wednesday’s business included, Universal’s Wicked has topped the $700M mark globally. Of the total, $240.4M is from the international box office and $460.6M from domestic. The film still has Japan to release on March 7. The news comes as Wicked today was nominated in the main feature category by the PGAs. The $700M

Turkey’s Kanal D Internatioanal Adds To Sales Team Turkish distributor Kanal D International has beefed up its international team with a new hire and a promotion. Duda Rodrigues joins to cover sales to the U.S. and Canada as well as Latin America  and Portuguese-speaking territories. With Turkish drama continuing to sell well internationally, Kanal D

Andy Muschietti, the director of The Flash, is opening up about why he thinks the DC film flopped at the box office. In a new interview, the filmmaker says that many factors contributed to the underperforming superhero film and not bringing moviegoers to theaters. “I think [The Flash] failed because it didn’t appeal to all

EXCLUSIVE: Egyptian and American filmmaker Sam Abbas has unveiled upcoming picture Europe’s New Faces capturing the migrant experience, from crossing the Mediterranean Sea out of Libya to settling in Paris-based squats. The observational work is the fruit of three years of filming migrant communities living illegally in abandoned buildings across Paris, as well as on

The Russo Brothers have shared a bit of the behind-the-scenes story behind their return to the MCU with a pair of forthcoming Avengers films, Doomsday and Secret Wars. In an interview with Empire Magazine published on Monday, filmmaker Anthony Russo, who’s directing the forthcoming films alongside brother Joe, shared that it “took a little time”

UPDATED with latest: The Los Angeles wildfires have thrown a wrench into the normal flow of events ahead of the 97th Academy Awards. The nominations announcement has been postponed twice, and the voting period extended twice, and the 2025 Oscar Nominees Luncheon, which was set for February 10, has been canceled. The ceremony is still

CNN‘s Alexander Marquardt took the stand in a Florida defamation trial Monday, defending his 2021 report that a security consultant sought exorbitant fees in what amounted to a black market to evacuate Afghans during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in 2001. The consultant, Zachary Young, then sued the network for defamation, claiming his reputation was destroyed

Ruslan, an 8-year-old boy living in a war-scarred village in Ukraine, drops a line into a pool of water and waits patiently for a bite. His fishing hole is manmade. “A missile landed here and made a pit,” he mentions calmly in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Once Upon a Time in Ukraine. “And then there was

Matthew Rankin’s second feature is something of an anomaly on this year’s Oscar shortlist for International Feature Film. For one thing, it takes place in a world that doesn’t actually exist, positing a surreal fusion of east and west that transplants the earnest rustic dramas of the Middle East to the bland, snow-covered industrial estates

Saying that AI was discussed at CES last week is a bit like saying oxygen was breathed during the giant tech confab. There was simply no way of avoiding the topic. For Hollywood, which has been unsettled by the rise of the technology over the past couple of years, the conversation swung from near-utopian levels

UK police has banned a pro-Palestinian march from gathering outside the BBC’s headquarters in London, The Guardian newspaper reports. A gathering in central London was planned for this weekend, intended to begin outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House before marching south towards Whitehall. The Guardian reports that, Thursday evening, police confirmed they had imposed the Public

As the Palisades and Altadena fires continue to ravage Los Angeles communities, celebrities like Jennifer Garner, Paris Hilton and others are mobilizing to donate, jumpstart relief funds and volunteer. Some, like Sharon Stone and Halle Berry, are donating clothing to those who have lost their homes or otherwise been displaced amid the ongoing state emergency.

EXCLUSIVE: Wicked production sound mixer Simon Hayes says Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba opposite Ariana Grande’s Glinda in the musical extravaganza, has the prowess of an Olympian, which enabled his team to achieve vastly more than they’d expected. When Hayes and his unit were setting up microphones for the dynamic tour de force number “Defying Gravity” that sees Erivo

Bong Joon-ho‘s highly anticipated sci-fi film Mickey 17 is set to premiere on February 28 in South Korea, before the title’s March 7 North American release and global rollout. Starring Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun, Naomi Ackie and Mark Ruffalo, the $150M blockbuster is Bong’s first feature since helming his history-making title, Parasite. Warner

The Italian box office softened by 0.4% in 2024 for an overall gross of $508M, on the back of a 1.3% dip in spectators to 69.7M, according to data detailed by Italy’s box office data monitor Cinetel on Thursday. The body suggested the results were broadly positive in a challenging year marked by big sporting