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In his 30-year career as an actor Amrish Puri did over 200 films. In his early years, most of the work he did was either quality-oriented work for the avant-garde directors Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani or outright kitsch, where he used his powerful voice and screen presence to accentuate the cinematic definitions of evil. Puri’s truly fertile phase as Bollywood’s most dependable character-actor, or actor of character, began in 1992. Here’s a checklist of his best films.

Nishant (1975):Playing the eldest brother in a family of zaalim(cruel) zamindars who abduct and rape a schoolteacher’s wife, Amrish Puri struck a note of immediate and everlasting terror in viewers’ hearts. Though the film had other terrific actors it was Puri who dominated the show in every way possible. The role had apparently been written for the Bengali actor Utpal Dutt, who excelled at playing obdurate disciplinarians. Puri, too,...

General Hospital (Gh) spoilers reveal that Chad Duell has left his role as Michael Corinthos on the ABC soap.

Duell recently appeared on Maurice Benard’s (Sonny Corinthos) podcast, State of Mind, where they entertained fans with talk of “Mini Maurice.” Here’s what to know!

General Hospital Spoilers – Maurice Benard Hosts State of Mind

Fans noticed Duell holding a doll which he introduced as Mini Maurice. According to Duell he “made this myself, actually, about five, six years back.”

“You know, we do scenes together and we were working heavy together, I kind of wanted to have somebody I can run lines with and just have your kind of presence. And also, it was a situation like a Buddha’s belly type thing.

Just for a good luck thing, I just go between the shirt, rub the nip. It’s a good luck kind of charm for me, especially...

Dorothy Sing Zhang studied Fine Arts at the University College of London, Slade, and pursued film studies at Ecole de Leth (Denmark) with Lars Von Trier and Jørgen Leth. In 2021, she directed the documentary “BàBà” (Festival du Nouveau Cinéma). In addition to her film work, she also released the monograph Like Someone Alive. “Masterpiece Mommy“, her latest short premiered in Toronto this year and stars Chinese singer-songwriter Leah Dou.

Ada is distributed by Dogme23.

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The film begins with a doctor informing her patient of the results of her Ct scan, with the phrase “I have some news, good and bad” looming quite heavily from the get go of the short. Meanwhile, the images, in slow motion for the most part, show a sequence of coins falling from a bag. The next scene is more ‘grounded’, showing a waiting room with Justine and her mother...

Mark your calendars, Oscars fans, because the 97th Academy Awards will air on Sunday, March 2, 2025 on ABC. The annual star-studded ceremony will honor movies released in theaters within the 2024 calendar year of eligibility. AMPAS members will vote on the Oscar winners in 23 categories, including Best Adapted Screenplay. But who will win? Here at Gold Derby, thousands of users have been making and updating their 2025 Oscar predictions for Best Adapted Screenplay, so let’s take a look at all of the top contenders in our photo gallery below.

These 25 Best Adapted Screenplay hopefuls are listed in order of their racetrack odds, which are derived from the combined forecasts of four unique groups: experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, editors who cover awards year-round for this website, top 24 users who had the best accuracy scores last year, and the mass of users who make up our biggest predictions bloc.

The...

This claim, included in Universal’s thorough and impressive list of box office achievements for 2024, is technically true: “Domestically ‘Wicked‘ is now … the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation of all-time at the domestic office ahead of ‘Grease’ ($188.62M).”

Also technically true is that “The Grinch” is bigger than “Gone with the Wind,” “Sing” is bigger than “Jaws,” and “Five Nights at Freddy’s” is bigger than “The Godfather.” Also, the 1977 first “Star Wars” is only the third biggest success of that franchise.

Presenting grosses without adjusting skews the real picture of how they compare. It is a prime case of film history erasure, an all-too common occurrence these days. The somewhat (but not impossible in most cases) effort to sort out the true success of films through history starts with adjusting box office takes to current ticket prices. Normally, that is fairly simple, since we know the costs by year and can do the math.

The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has revealed its nominees for the upcoming 2025 awards, and it’s a high-stakes Oscar season, proven by the notable snubs and surprises. The five filmmakers contending for the prestigious DGA Award for Directorial Achievement in Feature Film are the following:

Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez” Sean Baker for “Anora” Edward Berger for “Conclave” Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist” James Mangold for “A Complete Unknown”

It’s a category entirely of first-time DGA nominees. Most notably, this is significant for Mangold, who nabbed the first of his career for the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” which continues to pick up momentum coming after its haul at the SAG Awards noms. After helming films like “Walk the Line” (2005), “Logan” (2017) and “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), this piece of notoriety seemed long overdue.

This is also huge for German auteur Berger, who missed out on a director nom...

Many have noticed the following trend in recent years, and it strikes everyone as incredibly odd. Whenever a major Hollywood studio pours millions into a high-profile movie musical, they insist on eschewing the fact that they have done so in the film's advertising. One might note that the early previews for Jon M. Chu's "Wicked" didn't feature any of the film's songs, despite being based on one of the most popular Broadway musicals of all time. Likewise, trailers for "Mufasa: The Lion King" didn't boast any of the film's songs, despite them having been written by Disney superstar Lin-Manuel Miranda. Earlier this year, previews from the musical rendition of "Mean Girls," also adapted from a Broadway show, didn't have any singing in them, and the ads for the 2023 hit "Wonka" were also song-free. 

This has led many pundits and critics to ask why Hollywood is manufacturing a stigma against musicals.

Marco and Rifle Club released on the same day, and the content of both the films made sure 2024 ended with a loud bang for Malayalam cinema. Both films have ample amounts of gunfights, gore, and death, though the premise in each of them is different. Though Rifle Club was about a family shielding themselves from a gangster’s wrath, Marco, directed by Haneef Adeni, is a revenge saga of a mafia family that is avenging the death of their family member.

Spoilers Ahead

Why was Victor killed?

Marco began with Victor, a young blind guy, and his best friend, Wasim, conversing about the latter’s older brother, Tariq. He was complaining about Tariq getting involved in illegal businesses that were in Wasim’s name. Minutes later, Wasim was killed by a group of goons, and Victor, the next day, was able to identify the killer through his scent. He could...

Catchphrases have a unique power to transcend their origins and embed themselves in our everyday lives. They can evoke memories, laughter (as in the Deadpool franchise for example), or inspiration, and often become cultural shorthand for complex ideas. Here’s a countdown of the top 10 most iconic catchphrases in pop culture:

10. “May the Force be with you.” Source: Star Wars

Why It’s Iconic: A benediction from the Jedi, this line has become synonymous with encouragement and good luck. It’s used far beyond the Star Wars universe, often in moments of challenge or adventure.

9. “I’ll be back.” Source: The Terminator

Why It’s Iconic: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stoic delivery turned this phrase into a symbol of inevitable return and unstoppable resolve. It’s been parodied and referenced countless times.

8. “D’oh!” Source: The Simpsons

Why It’s Iconic: Homer Simpson’s frustrated exclamation perfectly captures moments of self-inflicted mistakes.

What Did Al Pacino Say About Turning Down Han Solo Role & Giving Harrison Ford A Career? (Photo Credit – YouTube/Facebook)

Hold up, Al Pacino turned down Han Solo?! Yes, he did. Having delivered some of Hollywood’s most iconic performances in The Godfather, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon, he was offered the chance to become a galactic legend. But despite the big paycheck, Pacino passed on Star Wars in 1977.

At an event in New York, Pacino revealed the shocking story: “They gave me a script called Star Wars. They offered me so much money. I don’t understand it. I read it. So I said I couldn’t do it.” It’s as if the universe had conspired to create one of the most mind-boggling “What Ifs” in Hollywood lore. Instead of Pacino in the iconic role, we got Harrison Ford.

Ever the modest legend, Pacino quipped, “I gave Harrison Ford a career.

Francis Ford Coppola is responsible for half a century of onscreen leading men. The greatest Hollywood actors of the later 20th century, from Al Pacino to Robert De Niro to Robert Duvall? They also got their big break in one of the first two "Godfather" films. That's not to say these actors wouldn't have been stars without Coppola's movies (none of them are exactly one-hit wonders), but the New Hollywood truly put several artists in the right place at the right time to produce classic films.

In 1983, Coppola did it again with "The Outsiders," adapting S.E. Hinton's 1967 coming-of-age novel about several low-class teenage "Greasers" in 1960s Oklahoma. The main ensemble was played by several then up-and-comers, now-stars: Ralph Macchio as the sensitive Johnny Cade, Matt Dillon as wannabe tough guy Dallas "Dally" Winston, and Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze as brothers Sodapop and Darrel "Darry" Curtis. Diane Lane also appears as Cherry,...

Creating movies and TV shows with the goal of spawning spin-offs is all the rage these days. As such, it's easy to assume that "Young Sheldon" was born from a desire to continue milking the popularity of "The Big Bang Theory" after it ended with season 12. However, as Chuck Lorre told The Hollywood Reporter, the genesis for Sheldon Cooper's coming-of-age story came from a conversation he had with Jim Parsons about a real-life child genius.

"The beginning was a phone call from Jim Parsons, who sent me a video of his 10-year-old nephew in Texas who is a prodigy — brilliant, extraordinary, off the hook, crazy smart kid. And Jim asked, 'Is there anything we can do with this?' I said, 'Well, if we wanted to do a show about a young man who is brilliant — a comedy — we have that built into our show. That's the backstory of...

Vince Gilligan once spilled the tea on his boldest Breaking Bad move. Back then, Gilligan was orchestrating a scene so ambitious, he called The Godfather his blueprint. Yep, he went full Coppola mode. The stakes? Off the charts. The pressure? Through the roof.

Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad. | Image by Gage Skidmore, licensed under Cc By-sa 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Gilligan turned a gritty Albuquerque drug saga into a cinematic masterpiece, proving that even in the chaos of meth labs and desert standoffs, art could reign supreme.

How Vince Gilligan gave Breaking Bad a cinematic soul Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul in Breaking Bad | Credits: AMC

Vince Gilligan wanted Breaking Bad to look like The Godfather. Yes, that was the standard he set for a show that rewrote television history.

Back on Jan. 20, 2008, Breaking Bad debuted on a fledgling network with zero hits under its belt. Expectations were rock bottom.

The 2024 year has been a decent year for cinema. We have had incredible blockbusters like Dune: Part Two and Inside Out 2, tasteful remakes like Nosferatu, and some originals like Anora and The Brutalist, which took the world by storm with their unique visions. Still, it was a slow year for the movies, with only a few exciting projects released.

There were also some films that were hits or were in the conversation but were at the end of the day mid at best. Some blockbusters earned millions because of some generous cameos (which really earn the billions these days) while some were just plain overrated.

Here are 20 films from 2024 that we at Fandomwire felt were overrated and did not deserve the attention they received.

1. Deadpool & Wolverine Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool & Wolverine | Credits: Marvel Studios

This was definitely the most anticipated film of the year and in many ways, it did deliver.

I’ve always avoided New Year’s resolutions, but this week I happened to recall one that was brief but resolute: I resolved to quit Hollywood.

And I did. Almost.

That decision seems relevant today for reasons that require a bit of history. Consider January 1975, 50 years ago: It was a Hollywood moment that was the opposite of the present, both in numbers and nuance. It was a great time to be around – and not to be.

The audience was expanding and was determined to get scared: Jaws was a smash. But millions also were welcoming the weirdities of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. TV fans were puzzled over something new called SNL, and music fans continued to discover Elton John (still are).

As box office kept growing, opportunity was abundant. Words like “downsizing” or “contracting” were still unknown.

There were hints of quantum change, but just hints: The Hollywood...

The Godfather is a masterclass in storytelling, and any discussion about the world’s greatest cinema is incomplete without the mention of this Francis Ford Coppola directorial. The layered plot, iconic performances, and hauntingly beautiful score have forever etched the film in our culture. But in recent years people have been debating whether the mafia drama should be considered a Christmas movie.

Marlon Brando in The Godfather | Paramount Pictures

At first glance, you might think the Corleone family saga which is rife with betrayal, crime, and power struggles has no place in the list of movies that would be associated with the holiday season. But upon a deeper dive, you would understand why the film resonates so deeply with some fans during Christmas time.

Family at the core: The Godfather on shared spirit Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in The Godfather | Paramount Pictures

The one thing that everyone looks forward...

Meryl Streep is the best of the best.

Her performance in Sophie’s Choice (1982) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actress winner ever, according to a Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts, critics, and editors, who ranked all 97 movie champs.

Diane Keaton ranked second for Annie Hall (1977), with Jodie Foster following in third for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972) and Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) rounded out the top five.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actress winners is Mary Pickford for Coquette (1929). Just above that film in the rankings are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932), Loretta Young for The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), and Marie Dressler for Min and Bill (1931).

Another recent Gold Derby poll of cinema experts declared The Godfather (1972) as the greatest Best Picture Oscar winner of all...

Do you think there’s time for redemption after you have done so much crime while being an Italian mafia boss during your reign? Veteran director Francis Ford Coppola thought there was.

It started with Vito Corleone in The Godfather | Credits: Paramount Pictures

The acclaimed director made a bold choice to include Sofia Coppola (his daughter) in one of the prominent roles in the film. Unfortunately, The Godfather Part III received brutal criticism and Sofia Coppola got the brunt of it.

There was nothing more to say in The Godfather Part III

It started with Vito Corleone handing the keys of his empire to Michael Corleone through a series of unfortunate events. Mario Puzo’s The Godfather which was released in 1972 received worldwide acclaim and love from millions of fans.

The Godfather Part III was the end of a tale | Credits: Paramount Pictures

The second film expanded on Michael Corleone...

Actor John Cazale is notable not just for his talents and intensity as a performer, but also for having one of the most impressive filmographies for any actor with a career as short as his. Cazale, a prolific theater veteran, famously only appeared in five feature films before his untimely death of lung cancer in 1978 at the age of 42. Those five films, however, are often considered some of the best and most significant films of the 1970s, which is saying something.

Cazale appeared in three Francis Ford Coppola movies, as well as Sidney Lumet's stirring bank robber drama "Dog Day Afternoon" and Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter." Cazale played supporting roles in all of them. Each one of them was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Three of them won.

Cazale's film career, of course, was only a small piece of his acting experience. Notoriously guarded and shy,...

Love them or hate them, obsess over them or ignore them altogether, the Academy Awards are a cultural artifact whose history mirrors the very history of American film. Granted, as a gatekeeping and taste-managing institution, the Oscars have always been better at belatedly following and responding to winds of change in the industry than at anticipating or provoking them, and you could probably count on your fingers the number of times that the Oscar statuette in any given category went to a genuinely bold, bracing, game-changing winner. But they're as good a summation of the congealing of critical and commercial mainstream consensus over the decades as we film buffs have. And, as such, it's fascinating to look at the instances of the ultimate winner being so out of lockstep with that consensus as to cause an uproar.

As we gear up for the 97th Academy Awards in March 2025, it's a...

As the world prepares to celebrate New Year’s Eve, fans will probably have a list of their best fun-filled New Year scenes in films. But only a few would remember The Godfather 2, which features an iconic celebration scene. The scene is rather intense rather than a joyous one but it is one that movie lovers would remember decades long after the original was released.

Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in the New Year’s Eve scene in The Godfather 2 | Credits: Paramount Pictures

In this particular scene from the film, Michael Corleone finds the rat in his team who is responsible for the attempted hit against his family.

Michael finds on New Year’s Eve that it was his brother Fredo who betrayed him, throwing the viewers for a curve during the family-oriented holiday. Al Pacino delivers an exceptional performance alongside the legendary John Cazale.

The tragic New Year’s...

Believe it or not, there used to be a time where movie sequels were actually an incredibly rare thing. As it was, audiences felt that movies and even tv shows should have definitive stories and points that they were trying to make and why would anybody bother making a sequel to what should have been a conclusive story? But now, in an era where Hollywood values established IP and fanbases more than any potential original project, sequels have become the norm. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing that sequels have taken over cinemas, provided that the sequels are just as good as the originals and come out with their own original plot-lines. Like all movies, whether or not a person might enjoy a surplus of sequels is preferential and is more so dependent on the subject material, especially if it’s regarding a franchise that the audience has taken a liking too.

The end of the year draws near, which means it’s time for the annual ritual of celebrating how far we’ve come and sharing good tidings for the future—all while battling the fear that we’re too inadequate to make a mark with our ruthlessly linear life. The...

Francis Ford Coppola is nothing if not nostalgic. His work, from “The Godfather” to “Megalopolis,” echoes not only past periods of history, but also the cinema that’s influenced him since he was a child. In entering the Criterion Closet, Coppola didn’t come to simply select a few films to take home, but to also pay homage to those helped shape him and to his own work that took time to find appreciation. He started his visit by grabbing the Complete Jacques Tati set and comparing Tati’s experience financing “Playtime” to his own recent gamble on “Megalopolis,” acknowledging that many didn’t consider it a “masterpiece” at the time, whereas now they do.

“More than a masterpiece because it’s a gift of a really good time,” said Coppola, “a lot of fun for everybody.”

Coppola went on to take his own film, “Rumble Fish,” starring a young...

The performance by Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice (1982) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Actress winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 21 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 97 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977). Following in third place is Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Rounding out the top five are Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972), and Vivien Leigh for A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).

At the bottom of the list of the Best Actress winners is Mary Pickford for Coquette (1929). Just above that film in the rankings are Luise Rainer for The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1932), Loretta Young for The Farmer’s Daughter (1947), and Marie Dressler for Min and Bill (1931).

Another recent poll had The Godfather (1972) declared as the greatest Best Picture Oscar winner of all time (view...

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune was a breath of fresh air and a perfect cinematic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi saga. Dune 2 was even more promising with high-stakes political drama and betrayals. Viewers crave more of the story and can’t wait to see how Paul Atreides will evolve.

Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya in a still from Dune: Part Two | Warner Bros. Pictures

However, Villeneuve’s bold comparison to Michael Corleone, one of the most tragic anti-hero characters, is a little concerning. So, let’s see why the director finds his main character similar to the one in The Godfather, and what’s so worrisome about it.

Paul Atreides from Dune is the Michael Corleone of Sci-Fi Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather | Paramount Pictures

In an interview with The New York Times, Denis Villeneuve was asked about the ending of Dune 2 where Paul Atreides chooses to kill billions.

Diane Keaton is one of those special actors who can shift from comedy to drama without missing a beat. She has been nominated for two Oscars in comedy (“Something’s Gotta Give” and winning for “Annie Hall”) and two in drama (“Reds” and “Marvin’s Room”). And she shows no signs of slowing down, continuing to pop up in films and television shows. Let’s take a look back at 15 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Keaton is also a key cast member in one of the seminal film series of all time — Francis Ford Coppola‘s “The Godfather” trilogy. Her heartbreaking turn as Kay Adams Corleone, a woman who sincerely believed that her husband was a good man, will forever be a part of motion picture history.

A recipient of the 2017 American Film Institute life achievement award, Keaton has also been nominated for eight Golden Globes for her work in film,...

Oscar-winner Robert Duvall has starred in dozens of films spanning a 60+ year career, racking up six additional nominations in the process, but how many of those titles remain classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Duvall made his big screen debut with the small but memorable role of Boo Radley in “To Kill a Mockingbird” (1962), released when he was 31-years-old. His first Oscar nomination came just 10 years later: Best Supporting Actor for Francis Ford Coppola‘s mob classic “The Godfather” (1972).

It would take 11 years before Duvall finally clinched that elusive Best Actor Oscar for “Tender Mercies” (1983), a small-scale drama about a drunken country-western singer working towards redemption. He would compete five additional times: lead for “The Great Santini” (1980) and “The Apostle” (1997); supporting for “Apocalypse Now” (1979), “A Civil Action” (1998), and “The Judge” (2014).

Duvall has found success on the small screen as well,...

Image Source: Amazon When Robert Evans passed away in October 2019, Hollywood said goodbye to one of its most captivating and influential figures. Evans was a trailblazer, a man who defied conventions and blazed his own path to the top of the film industry. His evolution from a clothing retailer to a legendary film producer showcased his relentless ambition, unshakable confidence, and ability to reinvent himself. Evans legacy in cinema is unmatched. As the head of Paramount Pictures, he championed some of the most iconic films of all time. Classics like The Godfather (Parts I and II), Chinatown, Harold and Maude, and Love Story became cultural cornerstones, with Evans vision driving Paramount into a new golden era. But his influence wasn’t confined to the movies themselves—Evans left an undeniable mark on Hollywood’s culture. His larger-than-life personality inspired memorable fictional characters, such as Dustin Hoffman’s manipulative producer in Wag the Dog,...

Being a prodigy of Lee Strasberg, famous for teaching his students method acting, Al Pacino took this approach to acting to a whole new level. Things were no different when he joined forces with Christopher Nolan for Insomnia, which starred Robin Williams in one of the late actor’s most distinctive roles, a far cry from his comedic roots.

Al Pacino and Robin Williams in Insomnia | Credit: Warner Bros.

While the A-listers shared impeccable chemistry onscreen, behind the scenes, William’s commitment to the villainous gig didn’t hinder his comic antics, as he later confessed to teasing Pacino’s method acting.

Robin Williams recalled his playful response to Al Pacino’s method acting Insomnia | Credit: Warner Bros.

Apart from delivering Oscar-worthy performances on a regular basis, Al Pacino is also notable for his iconic screams, and it appears, his dedication to yelling isn’t confined in front of the camera.

It’s hard to believe, but it has been over 12 years since the release of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Upon its release, it completely shook up the RPG genre and presented players with a gameplay that still holds up in today’s day and age.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a generational hit. (Image via Bethesda Game Studios)

Skyrim is truly Bethesda and Todd Howard’s magnum opus. However, the game would’ve never been able to achieve the heights it did if EA hadn’t canceled an open-world Lord of the Rings game that had all the potential to lead the RPG genre and obliterate its competitors.

EA’s Lord of the Rings game would’ve smashed records Morfydd Clark in a still from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Image via Prime Video)

You’ll be shocked to know that years ago, EA Redwood Shores...

Few Westerns are more deserving of the "classic" moniker than 1969's "True Grit," one of John Wayne's best films and a model for the genre that continues to be influential today. That's in part because the film was thrown back into the public consciousness in 2010 when Joel and Ethan Coen remade "True Grit" with Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon. However, the original still stands on its own and remains notable for giving Wayne his only Oscar win.

Both the original and the 2010 film are adaptations of a 1968 novel by Charles Portis, but given how old the 1969 version is, you might not be surprised to hear that most of its stars have passed away in the decades since. Wayne died in 1979, and Glen Campbell passed away in 2017. Dennis Hopper and Jeremy Slate, who play two of the main villains in the film, have also passed away.

When filming on the popular Christmas movie Elf wrapped, there was no Empire State Building snow globe or “Buddy the elf, wha’s your favorite color?” sweater for James Caan. Instead, the late actor received a sassy note as a wrap gift from his co-star Will Ferrell (Buddy).

James Caan didn’t find Will Ferrell funny on the ‘Elf’ set

Filming the 2003 Christmas comedy didn’t involve Caan, who played Buddy’s father, Walter Hobbs, constantly laughing at Ferrell’s jokes. “I like to do bits, but at the same time, I’m not like ‘on’ all the time,” Ferrell said during a July 2024 appearance on Christina Applegate and Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s “MeSsy” podcast.

Caan, who died in 2022, simply didn’t think the Anchorman star was funny, and he told him so. “In between setups, he’d be like, ‘I don’t get you. You’re not funny. You’re not funny,...

Beginning in the late 1960s and spreading into the 1970s, American cinema was revolutionized by the New Hollywood movement. At the forefront of this movement was a crew of directors from different entertainment disciplines who spoke to the exploding youth counterculture with classics like "Bonnie and Clyde," "The Graduate," and "M*A*S*H." The world felt like it was going mad, but the movies were somehow helping us make sense of this descent. Before moviegoers could adjust to this newfangled mode of motion picture art, the film brats arrived. Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg rattled the industry's cage in wildly different ways. It was a glorious time. Then studios, with the perhaps unwitting assistance of Lucas and Spielberg, locked in on a formula: They could make hundreds of millions of dollars off a single movie if they hit the right commercial buttons.

Although cinema is an art form, first and foremost, it is also a business that requires financial support to be sustained. A healthy box office is necessary for the medium to remain a cornerstone of popular culture, as studios will only be willing to invest in future projects if it is proven that there is an audience that is willing to go out and see them. 2024 was a year in which there were tremendous box office highs, but the delays due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes did lead to some crushing lows.

Box office performances are a compelling way to examine where the industry is headed, but it is not necessarily an indication of quality. Although films like “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Inside Out 2,” “Kung Fu Panda 4,” “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” and “Wicked: Part One” performed extraordinarily well this year, few publications that take themselves seriously...

Throughout the 1970s, audiences couldn’t get enough of disaster movies. The decade began with the all-star blockbuster bomb-on-a-plane thrill ride Airport, based on Arthur Hailey’s best-seller. Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Maureen Stapleton, Van Heflin, Jean Seberg, and Jacqueline Bisset headlined Airport, which became the second-biggest box-office hit of the year and earned nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and winning Best Supporting Actress for Hayes. Airport also established the template for subsequent movies: trapping all-star casts on a plane, a ship, or a high-rise.

SEEFred Astaire movies: 20 greatest films ranked worst to best

Producer-director-writer Irwin Allen took disaster movies to the next level — so much so he was dubbed “The Master of Disaster.” Allen, who enjoyed great success on the small screen in the 1960s with the series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, and Lost in Space, brought his disaster savvy to the...

Need something to stream during the holiday break? The subscription-free streaming service Tubi always has a surprisingly robust lineup of great films.

Yes, there’s a massive catalogue of obscure titles and forgotten gems — that’s half of the appeal! — but Tubi also has a lot of great movies and certified classics in the mix, too. It can just be a bit difficult to spot the must-watch new movies streaming amongst the enormous library.

Not to worry, here’s a hand-picked selection of the best new movies on Tubi this month to save you some time.

20th Century Fox Film Corp. ‘Die Hard’ (1988)

Hopefully, at this point, we can all let the “Is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie?” discourse rest — and if you’re someone who’s gotta watch “Die Hard” for the holidays, Tubi has you covered this year. Bruce Willis stars as future action icon John McClane, but in the original film,...

It all started in 1972 when cinema history was permanently changed after The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola hit the screens and put everyone in a trance that continues to this day.

Francis Ford Coppola and Marlon Brando on the sets of The Godfather (Credits: Paramount Pictures)

But the artist behind the creation of this gem of a film never intended to make more than one, let alone two sequels to the original story. He was “seduced” by Paramount which led to The Godfather Part III. Here is the story behind how it all happened!

Why Francis Ford Coppola made The Godfather III

In Hollywood, the creative vision of artists often clashes with the profit-driven goals of studios, and this clash can sometimes lead to the undoing of something truly special. Studios, eager to milk the success of a hit, tend to push for sequels or similar projects as long as...

Imagine a film archivist scouring an underground vault in Burbank or a cave in Butte, Montana, and discovering a few dozen dusty film canisters tucked away in a corner. Reels of some long-lost project from Francis Ford Coppola, or Bernardo Bertolucci, or Michael Cimino circa the mid-1970s reside in these tins, bearing all the hallmarks of the big-canvas epics these auteurs made in their heyday. The performances are reminiscent of that decade’s brooding Method-ists and screen chameleons — think Pacino, De Niro, Cazale, Streep. The moody, inky cinematography appears...

After the recent release of his misbegotten saga Megalopolis, the anniversary of his crime drama sequel serves as a perfect reminder of the director’s abilities

Creatively speaking, 2024 was Francis Ford Coppola’s biggest year in ages. Not only did it see the release of his first movie in 13 years, that film was Megalopolis, a dream project that had been kicking around in his head for upwards of four decades. It made a particularly auspicious year for the emergence of Coppola’s potentially career-capping achievement, because it also marked the 50th anniversary of perhaps his greatest sustained professional triumph: the year he released both The Conversation and The Godfather Part II within months of each other in 1974. With the sprawling (and loopy) ambition of Megalopolis still fresh in mind, the 50th anniversary of The Godfather Part II seems particularly notable in Coppola’s evolution as a film-maker.

The very idea...

Photos (l-r) Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Halston, Jerry Hall and Mick Jagger by Dustin Pittman in New York After Dark (Rizzoli) at Eerdmans Photo: Anne Katrin Titze, featuring work by Dustin Pittman

In the second instalment of our conversation with renowned photographer Dustin Pittman and music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman, we start out with the New York music scene at Cbgb and Hurrah, then go on to Andy Warhol superstars Candy Darling, Taylor Mead, Jackie Curtis, Sylvia Miles (in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy), Lana Jokel, and Bob Colacello. Dustin also had a distinguished career working with directors such as Alan J Pakula on The Sterile Cuckoo (starring Liza Minnelli), Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables, Miloš Forman’s Ragtime, and is seen at a party with Bernadette Peters in James Ivory’s adaptation of Tama Janowitz’s The Slaves Of New York.

Dustin Pittman (in Edie Sedgwick...

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2, and air live on ABC at 7 p.m. Et/ 4 p.m. Pt. We update our picks throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

The Best Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar shortlist from December 17 includes “The Apprentice,” “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” “A Different Man,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Pérez,” “Maria,” “Nosferatu,” “The Substance,” “Waltzing with Brando,” and “Wicked.”

“Wicked,” Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, delivers the backstory between the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda. Before they become bitter enemies, an unlikely friendship forms at the magical Shiz University in the Land of Oz between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a misunderstood girl with green skin,...

For all the bluster around movies about American filmmaking trending too heavily towards blockbuster spectacle, every year sees at least one grand tome about the soul of America. In 2024, you need to look no further than The Brutalist – a new feature from director and writer Brady Corbet. A grandiose epic in the vein of The Master and The Godfather, The Brutalist asks us to follow an immigrant story over decades. With Adrien Brody delivering a career-defining performance, the three-and-a-half-hour showcase overflows with ideas. Even with some slight pacing issues in the second half (Corbet builds in a fifteen-minute intermission), The Brutalist stamps itself as one of the early contenders for Best of the Decade honors.

Courtesy of A24 Related 5 Reasons You Should Watch Adrien Brody’s “The Brutalist” The Brutalist Plot

László Tóth (Adrien Brody) arrives in America as a survivor of the Holocaust. His wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and...

The IMDb top-250 is a curious portrait of populist taste. The list is, it's worth remembering, culled only from user ratings on the IMDb website, and, judging by the films on the list, the average IMDb user seems to be a college-age white male with a taste for crime, guns, fantasy, and the ultra-masculine. The top movies on the list all seem to be the types of movies that young men would own posters for, proudly displayed on their dorm room walls. There are many unassailable classics, to be sure, and young teens could easily look to the list as a rudimentary introduction to the world of cinema, but the list seems ... skewed. There's not a lot of variety. It's not curated by a single critic, nor even a panel of critics. It's just a general consensus of the taste of the types of people who like to rate movies on IMDb.

The Oscar shortlists were released on December 17, the results of which are analyzed in Anne Thompson’s overview. Here, we’re covering the crafts of makeup and hairstyling, original score, sound, and visual effects.

“Wicked” was the big winner — appearing on all four lists. This was followed by three-listers “Emilia Pérez”, “Dune: Part Two”, “Gladiator II”, and “Alien: Romulus”.

Scoring two noms were “Nosferatu”, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”, “Blitz”, “Deadpool & Wolverine”, and “The Wild Robot”.

The rest of the nominees were broken down by the following:

Muahs: “The Apprentice,” “A Different Man,” “Maria,” “The Substance,” and “Waltzing with Brando.”

Score: “Babygirl,” “Blink Twice,” “The Brutalist,” “Challengers,” “Conclave,” “The Fire Inside,” “Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1,” “Inside Out 2,” “The Room Next Door,” “Sing Sing,” “The Six Triple Eight,” and “Young Woman and the Sea.”

Sound: “A Complete Unknown” and “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

Visual Effects: “Better Man,” “Civil War,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,...

The New Hollywood era -- which began with the release of the true story-based "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967 before breathing its last in 1981 with Michael Cimino's notorious bomb "Heaven's Gate" -- was one of the most exhilarating artistic movements of the 20th century. It came after a fallow creative period for the major studios, which were mostly run by old moguls who'd lost the pulse of the moviegoing public. They didn't get the Baby Boomer generation, so when a younger, hipper group of executives and producers demonstrated a knack for packing the nation's theaters with movies like "Rosemary's Baby," "The Exorcist," and "The Godfather," there was a sudden changing of the guard (and mindset).

This mindset had nothing to do with the types of films being made. It was just as the great screenwriter William Goldman once quipped: when it came to what worked, nobody knew anything. What they did know,...

Every year, film buffs assemble online to see which 25 movies will be added to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry -- a list that includes titles you'd expect like "The Godfather," "Star Wars: Episode IV -- A New Hope," "Thelma & Louise," and "Casablanca." For 2024, the new additions bump the Nfr's total catalog to 900 films, bringing in classics and modern classics alike in a crop of movies spanning decades.

For sci-fi fans, the main attraction this year will likely be "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." The 1982 theatrical sequel is still held up as one of the high watermarks for the entire "Star Trek" franchise, and in the eyes of many fans, its greatest singular achievement. Spock's noble sacrifice in the film has gone down in history alongside the Darth Vader reveal and the "tears in rain" monologue from "Blade Runner" as an all-time iconic sci-fi moment.

The Godfather Part III, the final chapter in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Godfather trilogy, was given a wide theatrical release on December 25, 1990 – and as far as director Luca Guadagnino is concerned, that release date was the perfect choice for the film, as it happens to be his go-to choice for Christmas viewing.

When IndieWire asked Guadagnino what he likes to watch over the holidays, he replied, “[The Godfather Part III] is the best of the three for me. Part II is too perfect and The Godfather is too legendary. But Part III has the ambition of a man who did everything and the fragility of the man who is going toward this older part of his work and his life. And it’s full of this longing melancholy. The scene where Diane Keaton listens to her son sing at the party in the villa, where she wanders in her...

Gladiator II Box Office (North America): Set To Hit $150M Mark( Photo Credit – Instagram )

Gladiator II collected strong numbers again this weekend at the US box office. It is now close to hitting a major milestone and might even achieve that this coming weekend. It is enjoying a good run at the cinemas, but still not enough compared to its hefty budget. It features a dynamic cast, and Denzel Washington is getting the most praise for his performance. Scroll below for more.

For the uninitiated, this is the sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 blockbuster Gladiator. The story picks up several years after the events of the first film. It is the highest-grossing film in Washington’s career and registered the esteemed filmmaker’s biggest international debut. Recently, it surpassed The Godfather and The Green Mile to become one of the top 35 highest-grossing historical fiction films ever.

BoxOfficeReport.com has...

We must be careful how we throw around the word "masterpiece," and yet it seems entirely appropriately for Brady Corbet's towering achievement "The Brutalist." Years in the making, Corbert's sprawling, nearly four-hour epic is cut from the same cloth (or perhaps I should say chiseled from the same stone) as great masterpieces like "Citizen Kane," "The Godfather," and more recently, "There Will Be Blood." And like those three movies, "The Brutalist" is a distinctly American masterpiece; a story that reflects the triumphs and horrors of the ethereal thing we call "The American Experience." These are stories of great men bursting with wild, potentially dangerous ambition and how they found a way to encase that ambition in the still-developing America of the past, an ever-changing, ever-growing thing impossible to pin down. 

All of Corbert's films are like mock history lessons; biopics for people who never existed, but feel real. His feature debut,...