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Mitzi Gaynor, star of 1950s big-screen musicals including “South Pacific” and “Les Girls” and a series of beloved variety specials in the 1970s, died on Thursday. She was 93.

Gaynor’s management team, Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda, confirmed to Variety that she died of natural causes.

“For eight decades she entertained audiences in films, on television and on the stage. She truly enjoyed every moment of her professional career and the great privilege of being an entertainer,” Reyes and Rosamonda wrote in a statement on Gaynor’s X account. “Off stage, she was a vibrant and extraordinary woman, a caring and loyal friend, and a warm, gracious, very funny and altogether glorious human being.”

Gaynor starred as Navy nurse Nellie Forbush in the 1958 big-screen adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific” together with Rossano Brazzi as French planter Emile De Becque and John Kerr as Lt. Cable. Gaynor sang...

Mitzi Gaynor, the leggy entertainer whose saucy vitality and blond beauty graced the big screen in South Pacific and on Las Vegas stages and in spectacular TV specials, has died. She was 93.

Gaynor, who received top billing over The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 16, 1964, and was famed costume designer Bob Mackie’s first celebrity client, died Oct. 17 of natural causes, her team announced in a statement.

“As we celebrate her legacy, we offer our thanks to her friends and fans and the countless audiences she entertained throughout her long life,” Rene Reyes and Shane Rosamonda of Gaynor’s Mgmt team said in a statement shared on the entertainer’s X (formerly known as Twitter.)

“Your love, support and appreciation meant so very much to her and was a sustaining gift in her life. She often noted that her audiences were ‘the sunshine of my life.’ You truly were.

For most people born in the past three decades, Maggie Smith became a familiar figure as Minerva McGonagall, the transfiguration professor and deputy headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter movies. That strict but kind sorceress dispensed both imperious commands and compassionate counsel in a clipped Scottish brogue from beneath her pointed black hat.

Others might have met her as Violet Crawley, the tart-tongued Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey, whose advanced age and creeping infirmity did nothing to diminish her Old World authority — “I wouldn’t know, I’m not familiar with the sensation,” she once remarked, on the foreign concept of being wrong — or her precision at landing a cutting put-down.

Smith died today in London, aged 89, and those who know her only from those two signature roles would do well to sample the many jewels elsewhere in her seven-decade filmography.

For...

Dame Maggie Smith was many things. Hilarious and tragic. Elegant and aloof. Enchanting and deadly serious. Most will attribute their appreciation of her multiple-generation spanning career to roles in the “Harry Potter” or “Sister Act” franchises or perhaps “Downton Abbey,” which elevated her fame to a level she often spoke disdainfully of. For Smith was not an actress who was in it for the red carpets or accolades — though she received many, including two Oscars, five Baftas, four Emmys, and a Tony — but rather treated acting as a sturdy profession, one that required of her the utmost presence while on set or stage.

Beginning her career in the early 1950s, she played Viola in William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” at The Oxford Playhouse, followed later by roles in “As You Like It” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at London’s famed Old Vic theater. She rose to prominence on...

Maggie Smith, the two-time Oscar and four-time Emmy winner whose work in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Downton Abbey — plus everything before and after — made her one of the most formidable British actors of all time, died Friday. She was 89.

Her sons, actors Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin, told the BBC that she died “peacefully in hospital … an intensely private person, she was with friends and family at the end. She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother.”

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank the wonderful staff at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for their care and unstinting kindness during her final days.”

Best known in recent years for matriarchal roles in seven of the Harry Potter films and the ITV-pbs series Downton Abbey, Smith earned early acclaim with a best actress Oscar...

1958 was quite the year for French novelist Françoise Sagan, who had not one but two film versions of her works given the Hollywood treatment: A Certain Smile and Bonjour Tristesse. The latter was directed by Otto Preminger to mixed reviews despite a starry cast including David Niven, Deborah Kerr and newcomer Jean Seberg who had made her debut in Preminger’s Saint Joan the year before. She was enthralling, but the Preminger take of Sagan’s coming-of-age tale set on the French Riviera is largely forgotten today. Both studio films had the feel of a lavish soap so popular for these widescreen romantic dramas of the time. Now we have a new take.

Though Bonjour Tristesse has also since been made a couple of times for French TV, this is the first major international film version since Preminger’s, and it is a gorgeous-looking, quite lilting tale of an 18-year-old...

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival continues to catch some major stars. Today, festival head Cameron Bailey has announced the addition of more more honorees who will be receiving a TIFF Tribute Award at this year’s festival. Those honorees include Academy Award–nominated and renowned British filmmaker Mike Leigh, who will be honored with the TIFF Ebert Director Award.

Leigh will premiere his twenty-third film “Hard Truths,” at the festival, which will screen as part of the Special Presentations program and reunites him with Academy Award nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Secrets & Lies”). Named after legendary film critic Roger Ebert, the award has gone to celebrated visionaries such as Martin Scorsese, Claire Denis, Ava DuVernay, Wim Wenders, and the late Agnès Varda. Past recipients who received the TIFF Ebert Director Award since the TIFF Tribute Awards were introduced include Spike Lee in 2023; Sam Mendes in 2022; Denis Villeneuve in 2021; Chloé Zhao...

While most may prioritize new additions to streaming apps each month — something we here at IndieWire take great pride in — viewers should also not neglect the fact that with each new property added, another must go. Though some apps do concentrate these expiring selections in a row on one of their menu pages, they aren’t always the easiest to find. Thankfully, we’ve done the work for you. Scouring each major platform and discovering what’s about to disappear from our watchlists, IndieWire has gathered a few selections worth your time before they go from major streamers like Netflix and Prime, as well as apps on the rise like Tubi and Kanopy.

In honor of the political conventions being hosted this summer, for our Netflix selection we’ve gone with “Born on the Fourth of July,” directed by Oliver Stone and starring Tom Cruise in an Academy-Award nominated performance...

Mit „Saltburn“ erhitzte Emerald Fennell durchaus die Gemüter. Die Badewannenszene! Die Grabszene! Die Tanzszene! Nach ihrem knalligen Eat-the-Rich-Szenario mit einem hervorragenden Barry Keoghan soll es nun an die Verfilmung von Emily Brontës „Sturmhöhe“ gehen.

Emerald Fennell (Credit: Imago / Avalon.red)

Um den Exzess der Reichen und einen Außenseiter, der sich wie ein Parasit reinzeckt ging es in „Saltburn“. Damit hat Filmemacherin Emerald Fennell für gehörig Gesprächsstoff gesorgt, die einen haben ihn geliebt, die anderen gehasst. Immer interessant, wenn ein Film so spaltet. Jetzt hat sich die oscargekrönte britische Filmemacherin (bestes Drehbuch für ihr Regiedebüt „Promising Young Woman“) ein neues Projekt ausgesucht: Emily Brontës bereits mehrfach verfilmter Roman „Wuthering Heights“. „Sturmhöhe“, so der deutsche Titel, gilt als ein Klassiker der britischen Romanliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die Story erzählt von der tragischen Liebe zwischen Catherine, der Tochter des Landbesitzers Mr. Earnshaw, und dem enigmatischen Findelkind Heathcliff. Die erste Verfilmung entstand bereits 1920 als Stummfilm,...

Gareth Edwards' 2016 nostalgia-fest "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" seems to have been made to address what some people call a plot hole in George Lucas' 1977 film "Star Wars." In Lucas' film, the young Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) pilots a light attack craft up to a miniature hole in the exterior of the moon-sized Death Star, drops a bomb in it, and causes the entire superstructure to blow up. It is a satisfying ending to an exhilarating sci-fi pulp adventure.

Starwoids, however, watched Lucas films enough times that they began to ask questions. Why, the query went, would the deathly efficient Empire build a moon-sized planet-killing machine with such a grievous design flaw? Why build something so large and overpowered if a single bomb from a light attack craft can destroy it entirely?

The makers of "Rogue One" took that criticism to heart, and backward-engineered a story to explain the flaw.

Matthew Vaughn is a savvy filmmaker who should know his films, particularly when they go sailing over the top narratively and tonally — which describes pretty much all of them save for his 2004 debut directorial effort, "Layer Cake" and the open-hearted whimsy of "Stardust" — tend to divide critics. You either go with the rousingly ultraviolent superhero satire of "Kick-Ass," or you rage against its vile excesses, chief among them being the transformation of an 11-year-old into a gun-wielding, slicing-and-dicing whirlwind of death known as Hit Girl. He specializes in juvenile subversion, but if you can get past the giddy excess of his films, they occasionally contain a surprising degree of thematic depth.

Vaughn's 2024 flop "Argylle" was not, on any level, a thoughtful film. It's a star-studded stew of a spy-comedy romp that's meant as a one-and-done spinoff from the director's largely successful "Kingsman" franchise. On the surface, given its colorful assortment of celebrities,...

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

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

Charles Durning

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

One of the classic movie tropes of studio comedies, and especially in the 70s and 80s- is the ever-clever “slobs vs snobs” tale. You know, the blue-collar underdog against a preppy, often annoyingly sophisticated social elite. Movies like Revenge of the Nerds, Animal House, Wayne’s World, or Caddyshack make this the crux of their stories and often use multiple characters in each category to drive the shenanigans all the way up. But in some cases, a movie will tell the story with just one slob and one snob- and crank them both to their absolute extremes- and then throw in a heist because… we love that stuff.

In today’s episode of Revisited, we’re going to be talking about 1988’s buddy comedy classic- Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. This movie stars Steve Martin and (the now retired) Michael Caine as two con artists who make an old western-style bet to run each other out of town.

David Niven and Kim Hunter of the set of A Matter Of Life And Death (1946). Photo: courtesy of Altitude

Director David Hinton's Made In England: The Films Of Powell And Pressburger draws on a rich array of archival material to craft a captivating celebration of one of cinema's great collaborative partnerships. Together, the English Michael Powell and Hungarian Emeric Pressburger were the creative forces behind some of British cinema's most memorable films: The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, A Matter Of Life And Death, The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp and The Tales Of Hoffmann.

Martin Scorsese narrates and hearing him express his love for these films makes it feel like Made In England is a meeting with destiny. He was the only choice, not only because of his personal and professional relationships with Powell and his longtime editor, and Powell's widow Thelma Schoonmaker, but because of his enthusiastic energy,...

Sean Connery’s legacy in film history is irrefutable just as much as his contribution to the evolution of late 20th-century cinema. Despite the era’s misgivings and misogyny, Connery remains an irrevocable icon for his role as James Bond in the franchise’s first live-action film Dr. No. His blue-eyed, broad-shouldered, and laid-back charm not only hypnotized millions but also brought the Scotsman fame on a level previously unheard of.

Sean Connery in Goldfinger [Credit: United Artists]However, under fame’s seductive grip, Connery ended up shunning other roles that would go on to become equally iconic in the years to come. Sadder still, the actor blatantly used his fame as a tool to lord over industry producers and directors for a bigger payday.

Sean Connery Passed Up on Iconic Role Due to James Bond

Ruthless, sadistic, and diabolical, Brick Top remains one of the most exaggerated and terrifying on-screen villains to date.

Henry Cavill is the top choice of fans to replace Daniel Craig in James Bond. (Photo Credit – IMDb)

The name is Henry Cavill, and he might be the new James Bond. Reports and rumors of a new James Bond have been swirling online. With more names added to the list of potential 007s, Henry Cavill remains the fans’ top choice, so much so that a trailer goes viral on the internet and has garnered millions of views. The viral James Bond trailer also stars Barbie’s Margot Robbie as the Bond Girl. But here’s everything that happened!

Since the novels became a hit, the suave, quick, and ever-so-handsome 007 has been a craze. Secret agent Lores is famous for his thrilling adventures. The topic of who will play James Bond has haunted fans anytime; there is time to pass on the baton. Daniel Craig has played the role of Bond for some time now,...

Kooky kid sister, romantic lead, comic turn, cantankerous old dame … we pick out her greatest roles

An early Shirley in this epic Technicolor comedy-adventure based on Jules Verne, overstuffed with superstar cameos and produced by the impresario Mike Todd. David Niven sauntered through the role of the globe-circling gent Phileas Fogg and 22-year-old MacLaine was cast in the way Hollywood sometimes saw her in those days … as someone whose feline, gamine looks had something exotic and Asiatic about them. She was the Indian Princess Aouda, widowed after a loveless arranged marriage but rescued from the funeral pyre by the bold Fogg, whom she then joins on his travels for a while. A sweet and likable comic turn.

James Bond isn’t just another name. It’s an entire legacy on its own. Stemmed from Ian Fleming’s novels, the British secret agent quickly became a household name, and eventually, a huge part of the film industry. Seven actors have had their turn of bringing the character to life but it all started with Sean Connery all the way back in 1962.

Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr. No (1962)

While Sean Connery’s portrayal of the character still remains an iconic one, Ian Fleming was initially not his biggest fan. In fact, when Sean Connery was finally cast as James Bond, the author was quick to comment that the actor was not the “elegant man” he had quite hoped for. To top it all off, Ian Fleming was actually interested in another actor altogether!

Ian Fleming Had His Doubts about Sean Connery

Never Say Never Again (1983)

Starting with Dr. No,...

Even before the final moments of No Time to Die made abundantly clear that a James Bond of the Daniel Craig variety would not return, people began wondering about the identity of the next 007. Eon Productions has not yet answered that question, despite rumors that Aaron Taylor-Johnson has been offered the part. Whoever ends up getting the honor to be the face of a new era of Bond, expectations are very high.

It’s a time honored tradition, one that goes all the way back before the first Eon Bond movie Dr. No released in 1962. While that movie, and especially its two follow-ups From Russia With Love (1963) and Goldfinger (1964), established Sean Connery as the Bond by which every other actor is now judged, the character’s creator, the novelist Ian Fleming, had something different in mind for his super spy. In fact, Fleming didn’t want Connery at all.

Barbara Rush, the classy yet largely unheralded leading lady who sparkled in the 1950s melodramas Magnificent Obsession, Bigger Than Life and The Young Philadelphians, has died. She was 97.

Rush, a regular on the fifth and final season of ABC’s Peyton Place and a favorite of sci-fi fans thanks to her work in When Worlds Collide (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953), died Sunday in Westlake Village, her daughter, Fox News senior correspondent Claudia Cowan, announced.

“My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition,” Cowan said. “It’s fitting she chose to leave on Easter as it was one of her favorite holidays and now, of course, Easter will have a deeper significance for me and my family.”

A starlet at Paramount, Universal and Fox whose career blossomed at...

Jackie Chan has made a lot of successful movies both in his homeland and in the international arena. With the hundreds of projects under his belt, some were not well-received by the audience. One of the action star’s most popular Hollywood films is Disney’s Around the World in 80 Days.

Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

It was helmed as a reboot of the highly acclaimed 1956 version and an adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1873 novel. Apart from Chan, the film starred Steve Coogan and Cecile de France.

Around the World in 80 Days Was A Gigantic Mess

While the title sounds really exciting, Around the World in 80 Days was a critical and commercial flop. It only earned over $72 million worldwide against a production budget of $110 million, which means it lost a profit of at least $38 million. This seems not a really large amount, but the negative reviews...

Ian Fleming’s secret agent with a license to kill, James Bond has been brought to life by seven actors. It began with Sean Connery in 1962 and most recently, Daniel Craig finished his stint as Agent 007.

Daniel Craig || No Time to Die

Craig’s performance as the character is critically acclaimed, and some even call his portrayal the best ever. However, it might surprise one that Craig was initially hesitant to take on the role. While he might have been a bit reluctant to don that iconic tuxedo, the producers knew exactly what the movie needed and managed to have him on board.

Daniel Craig Told The Producers Why He Was Not The Best Fit For James Bond

Daniel Craig || Casino Royale

The on-screen adaptation of James Bond began in 1962 with Sean Connery. David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan also took the role before Craig stepped in.

Since the inception of the Academy Awards, the U.S.-based organization behind them has always strived to honor worldwide film achievements. Their extensive roster of competitive acting winners alone consists of artists from 30 unique countries, three of which first gained representation during the 2020s. The last full decade’s worth of triumphant performers hail from eight countries, while 42.1% of the individual actors nominated during that time originate from outside of America.

The academy’s history of recognizing acting talent on a global scale dates all the way back to the inaugural Oscars ceremony in 1929, when Swiss-born Emil Jannings (who was of German and American parentage) won Best Actor for his work in both “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Over the next three years, the Best Actress prize was exclusively awarded to Canadians: Mary Pickford (“Coquette”), Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”), and Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill...

John Cena made a bold appearance at the Oscar Awards. In a skit led by host Jimmy Kimmel, Kimmel played a clip of a streaker who ran across the stage behind David Niven at the Oscars in 1974.

“Can you imagine if a nude man ran across the stage today? I said, can you imagine if a nude man ran across the stage today? Wouldn’t that be crazy?” Kimmel said.

Cena poked his head out from behind the wings and called Kimmel over.

The two shared playful banter, all part of the skit, where Cena said he didn’t “want to do the streaker bit anymore.”

Kimmel expressed frustration at Cena, eventually convincing him to come out. Covering his groin area with the Best Costume Design envelope, Cena stepped on stage wearing nothing but sandals.

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“Costumes are so important,” he said. “Maybe the most important.

Wrestler and actor John Cena was the driver of surprise and shock at the ongoing 96th Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. He appeared naked on the Oscars stage as he presented the award for Best Costume Design to ‘Poor Things’, reports ‘Variety’.

John’s bit paid homage to one of the craziest moments in the history of the Academy Awards back in 1974 when a naked man ran on stage at the 46th Oscars while David Niven was introducing Elizabeth Taylor.

As per ‘Variety’, it was at the height of the 1970s streaking fan, when nude people frequently interrupted public events.

“Can you imagine if a nude man ran across the stage today?”, Kimmel asked the Oscars audience after remembering the infamous moment.

“I said, can you imagine if a nude man ran across the stage today? Wouldn’t that be crazy?”

Kimmel was clearly setting up...

Returning for his fourth stint as host, Jimmy ‘safe pair of hands’ Kimmel delivered some strong one-liners in his opening monologue and throughout the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony, held last night at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Referencing the strikes, he said: “It was also a great year for movies, despite the fact that everything stopped. The people in this room somehow managed to come up with so many excellent films and memorable performances. This night is full of enormous talent, and untold potential, but so was Madame Web.”

Poking fun at Republican senator Katie Britt’s much ridiculed response...

From Billie Eilish’s heartrending performance to John Cena’s beefcake cameo, the 96th Academy Awards served up some pretty terrific moments and more than a few surprises.

Here were the highlights — and lowlights — from Sunday’s telecast on ABC.

Great Moment when members of Osage Nation walked the red carpet. Like the costumes we saw in Killers of the Flower Moon, their Indigenous attire was both extravagant and gorgeous.

Surprise how the show started five minutes late because some attendees still hadn’t made it into the theater. Arrivals has been complicated by the security measures meant to keep pro-Palestinian protesters at a distance, and that led to “hundreds of people” getting stuck outside the entrance.

Pro-Palestinian protesters in Hollywood, CA ahead of 96th Oscars

Snub delayed for Greta Gerwig and how she didn’t get a nomination for Best Director.

Oscars 2024: John Cena Appears On Stage N*de Just With An Envelope Covering His Asset ( Photo Credit – Flickr )

Oscars 2024: It is the biggest award night ever, and all were decked up in their most glam avatar. But John Cena took things up a notch by going n*de on stage! Yes, you read that right! The former WWE star and now a notable Hollywood actor walked across the stage wearing nothing. But why? Keep scrolling for more.

Yargos Lanthimos directed Poor Things, which took home multiple Academy Awards, including Best Hair & Makeup and Set Production. Emma Stone was one of the frontrunners for the Best Actress in a Leading Role. Meanwhile, Mark Ruffalo lost the Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar to his Marvel co-star Robert Downey Jr.

Mark Ruffalo and Emma Stone’s movie Poor Things was also nominated for Best Costume, and to announce the winner,...

Oscars 2024 just got a little Nsfw after John Cena walked onto the stage naked to present the Best Costume Design category. Cena’s point was to prove why costumes were so important and his Barbie co-star Margot Robbie couldn’t stop blushing and laughing at his hilarious antics. But fans also noticed how well-maintained the WWE star’s body was. His clearly demarcated abs were one of the highlights of this Oscar evening.

John Cena in Ricky Stanicky

In comparison, another WWE wrestler-turned-actor could never dream of having the new Oscar streaker’s abs. Dwayne Johnson, who is known for his muscular, well-toned body in Hollywood, cannot have a six-pack due to medical reasons.

John Cena’s Streaker Moment At the Oscars Has Everyone Drooling Over His Six-Pack John Cena at the 96th Academy Awards

Families watching the Oscar night on television were in for a gasping moment when John...

Tonight, the Peacemaker was a Disrupter, so to speak.

John Cena gave out the Oscar for Best Costume Design (spoiler: the winner was Poor Things) nearly nude with a big placard covering his cajones that read “Costume Design”.

Host Jimmy Kimmel wanted to pay homage to the 1974 streaking incident which involved the late Robert Opel, who ran naked behind an unsuspecting David Niven onstage, who was introducing Elizabeth Taylor at the time.

After the laughter simmered, Niven beamed at the time, “Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen … But isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”

Related: Oscar Winners List – Updating Live On Hollywood’s Biggest Night

Tonight, as Kimmel was trying to cue the streaker to streak, Cena popped his head out from behind some scenery...

John Cena appeared naked on the Oscars stage while presenting the award for best costume design to “Poor Things.” It was all part of a bit that paid homage to one of the craziest moments in the history of the Academy Awards when a naked man ran on stage at the 46th Oscars in 1974 while David Niven was introducing Elizabeth Taylor. It was at the height of the ’70s streaking fan, when nude people frequently interrupted public events.

Can you imagine if a nude man ran across the stage today?” Kimmel asked the Oscars audience after remembering the infamous moment. “I said, can you imagine if a nude man ran across the stage today? Wouldn’t that be crazy?”

Kimmel was clearly setting up a bit where a streaker would run across the stage during the 2024 ceremony. That’s when a shirtless John Cena popped his head out from the corner of the stage.

During his monologue for the 2024 Oscars, host Jimmy Kimmel was quick to call out the Film Academy for failing to nominate Greta Gerwig for Barbie.

“It was a hard year but it was also a great year for movies despite the fact that everything stopped,” Kimmel reflected, alluding to the 2023 actors and writers strikes.

“Here we are all dressed up celebrating the best of the best beginning with Barbie,” Kimmel said, describing the film starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as a “monster hit.”

“What an achievement to take a plastic doll no one even liked anymore… Now Barbie is a feminist icon thanks to Greta Gerwig who many believe deserved to be nominated for best director,” Kimmel added. After the audience erupted into an applause Kimmel quipped, “I know you’re clapping, but you’re the ones who didn’t vote for her by the way. Don’t act...

Lily Gladstone made Oscar history as the first Native American to be nominated in the Best Actress category for her role in Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” While we thought she would try her luck in the featured category, she opted to campaign in lead. Her importance to the plot suggests that she is a co-star, despite her screen-time (especially in the second half of the film and compared to that of Leonardo DiCaprio).

It isn’t often that a performance that could go supporting is campaigned as a lead, but it’s happened in the past – even the very recent past.

SEEOscar Experts say it’s Emma Stone vs. Lily Gladstone for Best Actress

Last year, Michelle Williams was at one point the odds-on favorite to win Best Supporting Actress for “The Fabelmans.” Though her reason for going lead in anyone’s guess, some suggest that...

After 15 years and five films, Daniel Craig bid farewell to the role of James Bond in 2021’s No Time To Die. His swan song cleverly tied all his previous Bond outings together while raising the stakes higher than ever. However, while fans hailed Craig’s performance and the movie’s sense of finality, the climactic death scene left many scratching their heads over a seeming plot hole.

What was the ending of Daniel Craig’s No Time To Die?

Daniel Craig in Casino Royale

In No Time To Die, James Bond sacrifices himself to ensure the destruction of villain Lyutsifer Safin’s (Rami Malek) stronghold and the deadly bioweapon Safin planned to unleash. This leads to an emotional farewell between Bond and his love Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux). However, his preceding encounter with Safin muddies the waters.

After initially opening the silo so British missiles can strike Safin’s complex,...

There’s no question that the James Bond film franchise – the second longest-running such series in cinema history after Godzilla – comes with certain expectations in the minds of viewers. We can predict, mostly like clockwork, that 007 will wear a tux at some point in every film, he will bed at least one or more beautiful women, he’ll drive an Aston Martin (or some other high-end vehicle), and that he’ll have one polite conversation with the villain before the shooting really starts. There will also be a surreal, psychedelic credits sequence, often a big action scene before the credits, and so on.

But all those iconic trademarks of the Bond film franchise didn’t happen overnight. They were gradually introduced, especially in the early films, with some of them springing from the original Ian Fleming books and others invented by the filmmakers who adapted them. Some have remained virtually the same since their inception,...

Clockwise from top left: Priceless (Screengrab); 2 Days In Paris (Screengrab); Jeffrey (Screengrab); Something’s Gotta Give (Screengrab); The Big Sick (Amazon/Lionsgate); My Man Godfrey (Screengrab)

Lovers of romantic comedies have an array of options on Amazon Prime Video—particularly when it comes to oldies but goodies. Cary Grant classics abound,...

In the 95-year history of the Academy Awards, 88 films have each received nominations for both Best Actor and Best Actress. Although there have been 19 cases of two or more movies doing so in a single year, there hasn’t been such an occurrence since 1996, when both lead lineups included performers from “Dead Man Walking” and “Leaving Las Vegas.” However, according to Gold Derby’s late-stage 2024 Oscar nominations predictions, that nearly three-decade gap is set to soon be closed by costar pairs from “Killers of the Flower Moon” and “Maestro.”

The vast majority of the Oscars prognosticators who’ve been shaping our odds all season agree that Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) and Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) will all clinch academy mentions for their lead performances. The last such quartet consisted of eventual winners Nicolas Cage (“Leaving Las Vegas”) and Susan Sarandon (“Dead Man Walking”) and their respective costars,...

John Hamlin, who contributed to 45 Academy Awards telecasts at NBC and ABC as an executive or consultant and produced many other TV specials during his long career, has died. He was 92.

Hamlin died Monday at a family home in Pacific Palisades after he was hospitalized for severe dehydration from stomach flu, his family announced.

Hamlin worked with everyone from Bob Hope and Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson and said the highlight of his career was meeting Charlie Chaplin at the 1972 Academy Awards when the legend emerged from exile to receive an honorary Oscar.

He also had the truth about the streaker Robert Opel, who flashed across the stage at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the 1974 Academy Awards, saying the whole thing was planned and that co-host David Niven’s impromptu response about the naked man’s “shortcomings” was prewritten.

When anyone was new to working on the Oscars, they often...

1964's "The Pink Panther" is not a complex film. There is little to suggest a full-fledged film series in its story of a jewel with the shape of a panther buried deep within. Somehow, that premise resulted in a series of films lasting decades, with eleven unique (or mostly unique) live-action entries. And the cartoon character who showed up in the title sequence, dancing to Henry Mancini's iconic theme music? There was a Saturday morning series starring him that ran in various incarnations from 1969 to 1980.

When writer Maurice Richlin pursued director Blake Edwards with an idea for a film about a jewel thief, neither man could have predicted the surprising longevity of that idea. Certainly, they couldn't have predicted that the extremely thin premise of "The Pink Panther" would result in a series of films running into the 1990s. Nor could they have predicted that the protagonist would be...

Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens and Christopher Plummer as Ebenezer Scrooge in ‘The Man Who Invented Christmas’ (Photo by Kerry Brown / Bleecker Street)

Once again, the holidays – or is it holidaze? – are upon us, bringing with it a flurry of Christmas movies.

You have your endless parade of cartoons, specials, Christmas-themed episodes of your favorite TV shows, bad holiday comedies (1996’s Jingle All the Way and 2007’s Fred Claus come to mind), and Christmas-set horror movies (1984’s Gremlins). Then there’s the cheesy yet feel-good Lifetime and Hallmark films. And how can we forget the 24-hour marathon of 1983’s A Christmas Story (celebrating its 40th anniversary this year), beginning on Christmas Eve and ending on Christmas Day?

If those don’t do it for you, maybe these lists of Christmas movies will.

Classic Christmas Movies

You can’t go wrong with these classics, which can lighten the hearts of even the most ardent cynics.

Clockwise from bottom left: A Very Harold And Kumar Christmas, Miracle On 34th Street, An American Christmas Carol, It’s A Wonderful LifeGraphic: The A.V. Club

Happy holidays from The A.V. Club to you! If you’re anything like us, the winter season is for curling up in front...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSSubscribe to Notebook magazine before November 1 to receive Issue 4, which explores cinematic soundscapes in their diverse sonic forms and includes contributions from filmmakers like Pedro Costa, Garrett Bradley, and Dominga Sotomayor, pop musician Julia Holter, plus a wide range of artists, writers, and scholars. Subscribers will also receive with this issue a very special gift, a seven-inch record featuring a song by filmmaker Gus Van Sant and a field recording by sound designer Leslie Shatz.This week brought the sad, shocking news that the legendary Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien has retired from filmmaking due to illness. Hou's family confirmed in a statement that he is battling Alzheimer's, and the effects of long Covid have forced him to stop making films; they requested privacy during this time, adding that he is healthy overall, in the presence of family.

They made 24 often morally complex pictures before falling out of fashion. Now, as a monumental BFI retrospective kicks off, can their stricken pilots and posh ballerinas speak to our divided era?

It is May 1945 and night has fallen across Europe. The world is at war, cities are aflame and a Lancaster bomber is falling from the sky. Inside the burning cockpit, squadron leader Peter Carter gives his name and age then outlines his politics. “Conservative by nature,” he says. “Labour by experience.” Played by David Niven, the hero of A Matter of Life and Death is your emblematic Englishman – in that he is a muddle. He is trad and prog, romantic and practical, and amiably optimistic even in the teeth of disaster (and perhaps then most of all). He is describing himself as the plane goes down. By proxy, he is describing the film-makers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, too.

Mark Goddard, who played Major Don West, the hot-tempered pilot of the Jupiter 2, on the 1960s CBS adventure series Lost in Space, has died. He was 87.

Goddard died Tuesday in Hingham, Massachusetts, his wife Evelyn Pezzulich told The Hollywood Reporter.

Goddard had worked as a regular on the Four Star Television series Johnny Ringo and The Detectives when he was approached by his agent about coming aboard the new Lost on Space, created and produced by Irwin Allen.

The sci-fi show revolved around the adventures of the Robinson family: Professor John Robinson (Guy Williams), his biochemist wife, Maureen (June Lockhart) and their children Judy, Penny and Will (Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright and Billy Mumy).

Major West also was on board, as was a stowaway, Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris), and a robot (designed by Forbidden Planet‘s Robert Kinoshita, played by Bob May and voiced by Dick Tufeld). Their space colonization mission,...

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...

Synopsis

Black Hawk Down

From acclaimed director Ridley Scott (The Martian) and renowned producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pearl Harbor) comes the gripping true story about bravery, camaraderie, and the complex reality of war.

Black Hawk Down stars an exceptional cast including Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, and Eric Bana. In 1993, an elite group of American Rangers and Delta Force soldiers are sent to Somalia on a critical mission to capture a violent warlord whose corrupt regime has led to the starvation of hundreds of thousands of Somalis. When the mission goes quickly and terribly wrong, the men find themselves outnumbered and literally fighting for their lives.

The Guns Of Navarone

Academy Award®-winners Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn star as a team of Allied military specialists recruited for a dangerous but imperative mission: to infiltrate a Nazi-occupied fortress and disable two long-range field guns so that 2,000 trapped British soldiers may be rescued.

There’s no shortage of brilliant detectives in novels, film and television, but one of the greatest — or at least the one with the fanciest facial hair — is Hercule Poirot. The Belgian investigator, created by Agatha Christie, has appeared 33 novels, more than 50 short stories, and has been played by a variety of iconic actors.

But for whatever reason, Poirot has only sporadically appeared on the big screen, with many of his earliest movie appearances being lost to time, while some of his other noteworthy adventures were rewritten as vehicles for Christie’s other beloved creation, Miss Marple.

Here we take a look at the various theatrically-released adventures of Hercule Poirot, from the 1930s to today, and see which of his mysteries were truly worth solving.

Photo credit: Columbia

Honorable Mention: “Murder By Death” (1976)

Neil Simon’s wacky spoof of the supersleuth genre, directed by Robert Moore, features an all-star cast...

Jimmy Kimmel Live! has proven to be one of the staples of late night TV, with the show more than 3,500 episodes and 20 seasons deep. With this sort of run, Kimmel currently stands as the longest-running late night talk show host. But as it turns out, he almost got out earlier this year, saying he had plans to retire from his namesake program.

Speaking on the first episode of the podcast Strike Force Five – in which he and other notably late night talk show hosts details the goings-on of the continued WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes – Jimmy Kimmel said, “I was very intent on retiring right around the time where the strike started…And now, I realize, Oh yeah, it’s kind of nice to work.” Still, he added, “I was serious, I was very, very serious.” Kimmel really must have been considering the move since he signed a three-year contract extension just last year.

Way back in 2011, long before he was cast in the TV adaptation of Good Omens, actor Michael Sheen (Aziraphale) told MTV that his favourite film was Powell and Pressburger’s 1945 masterpiece A Matter of Life and Death. That was still the case in 2019, as confirmed on social media. For someone currently appearing as an angel, it’s an incredibly appropriate favourite film – and the makers of Good Omens must have been listening, because there are several Easter eggs nodding to the film appearing in the fantasy-comedy’s second season.

An Unusual Origin

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger were British film-makers who started a production company called The Archers in 1939, just a few years after Pressburger came to Britain having fled the Nazis. As well as producing, they wrote and directed several very well-known and hugely influential films during the 1940s, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus,...

The world of spy films is currently dominated by two franchises: James Bond and Mission: Impossible. Both are based on different mediums, but both have received multiple video game adaptations over the years. However, while the much more successful James Bond games have historically recreated the faces of the Bond actors with pixelated approximations, the Mission: Impossible games have never featured a recreation (or even an approximation) of Tom Cruise.

Actually, despite the fact that there are several games based on various Tom Cruise movies, the superstar actor has not only never appeared in a video game but has never had his likeness recreated in a video game. Why is that?

For additional context, the James Bond films have been running strong since 1962, and six (seven if you count David Niven) actors have starred as the titular character in major movies so far. While Sean Connery arguably remains film’s most iconic Bond actor,...