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Clint Eastwood's Hollywood career officially began in 1955 when he made a brief, uncredited appearance as a lab technician in Jack Arnold's "Revenge of the Creature." Nine years later, unhappy as a midlevel television star on the CBS Western series "Rawhide," he jetted off to Spain to make a different kind of Western with a very different kind of director named Sergio Leone. The result, "A Fistful of Dollars," changed the face of the genre forever, and set Eastwood down the path to becoming a filmmaker in his own right.

Eastwood's directing career got off to a curiously assured start with the wildly suspenseful thriller "Play Misty for Me," in which the tough, swaggering star of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" and "Dirty Harry" played a victimized Bay Area disc jockey. No one expected this from Eastwood, and it's fair to say no one saw this hugely...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Bam

A Different Man director Aaron Schimberg has assembled an all-35mm retrospective of films that inspired his new feature, including work by Lynch, Lubitsch, Nicholas Ray, and Tsai; the 50th-anniversary restoration of The Conversation begins a run.

Museum of Modern Art

A career-spanning Johnnie To retrospective has begun, featuring the director in-person.

Anthology Film Archives

An Ingrid Caven retrospective includes films by Fassbinder and Eustache; work by Joseph Cornell, Tony Conrad, and Bruce Conner plays in “Essential Cinema.”

Film at Lincoln Center

An essential retrospective of Brazil’s L.C. Barreto Productions continues.

Roxy Cinema

Faces and A Woman Under the Influence screen.

Museum of the Moving Image

A retrospective of the Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden continues; two films by Joanna Hogg screen on Saturday; Young Frankenstein and The Warriors have standalone showings, the latter on 35mm.

Film Forum

The Searchers...

Filmed in the freezing Nevada desert under studio pressure, Ford’s 1924 epic was a huge hit. It was the springboard for the director’s astounding career of westerns, idealism and high drama

Had the Oscars been around in 1924, when director John Ford’s epic western The Iron Horse was released, the critically lauded film would have swept up the lot. Though it might be largely forgotten now, this black and white silent movie, which turns 100 on 28 August, marked the point where Jack Ford – a former fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants props guy who also acted a bit, and was first hired as a director by virtue of being available – became master film-maker John Ford, the director many still herald as the greatest of all time. When The Iron Horse was inducted into the Library of Congress film archive in 2011, the official registry citation stated that it “established Ford’s reputation as one of Hollywood...

Any filmmaker worth their salt will acknowledge that the path to greatness comes from seeking inspiration from any source big or small, that could have a deep influence in their process of creating art. Australian director George Miller who has inspired many people through his iconic Mad Max franchise, has also found magic in various places.

Tom Hardy in Mad Max: Fury Road (image credit: Warner Brothers)

Miller expertly rebooted his famous action series in 2015 with Mad Max: Fury Road starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron that went on to become a blockbuster. While talking about different aspects of the film, the director revealed a 40s classic film with a controversial history that served as inspiration for one of his characters.

An Old Hollywood Film Made George Miller Christen This Mad Max Character

George Miller created the dystopian action series Mad Max back in 1979 with Mel Gibson, which was followed...

The studio once known as 20th Century Fox is a younger entity than the other major Hollywood Studios. It was founded in 1935 out of the ashes of Fox Film, compared to Warner Bros (1923), Universal Pictures (1912), Paramount Pictures (1912), Columbia Pictures (1923), and Disney (1923) — the latter being the new parent company of 20th Century Studios.

Still, Fox waited only seven years to take home the top prize at the Oscars. At the 14th Academy Awards, held in 1942, Fox's film "How Green Was My Valley" won Best Picture, presented to Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. That wasn't the only prize "Valley" won that night: it also got Best Director (John Ford), Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Arthur Miller), and finally Best Art Direction -- Interior Decoration, Black-and-White.

One of the films that "Valley" beat that night was "Citizen Kane" (which got only Best Original Screenplay for director Orson Welles and his co-writer Herman J.

John Ford, the iconic director known for such films as Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, My Darling Clementine, The Searchers and much more, will be the subject of the next edition of the TCM podcast The Plot Thickens, it was announced Wednesday.

“Decoding John Ford,” hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, premieres June 6. The fifth season of the podcast, consisting of seven episodes, will feature never-before-heard archival interviews with the likes of John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Woody Strode and Ford himself.

TCM says Mankiewicz will “strip back the mythology to reveal Ford’s brilliance — alongside the often ugly, uncomfortable truths about his life and movies, asking whether we can ever truly separate art from the artist.”

“John Ford is a mercurial figure. Not surprisingly given his stature, the stereotypes about Ford are incomplete,” the host said in a statement. “This is a man defined by contradictions: he revered...

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Photo: Best Picture Snubs

Oscars 2024 is in a few days. With Cillian Murphy, Bradley Cooper, Margot Robbie, 'Barbie', Christopher Nolan, 'Oppenheimer', 'Maestro', all vying for the gold Academy Award, let us take a look at the past winners who were snubbed.

The Oscar for Best Picture may be the highest honor that a film could earn, but the Academy members who vote on the matter are anything but infallible--in fact, some of them don’t even watch the nominated movies at all. Audiences are often disappointed by the pick for Best Picture, but subjectivity mandates that there will always be some reasonable dissent--that said, this article will look back at some of the most widely agreed upon upsets that warrant a closer inspection.

Related...

Every cinephile knows that “What was the best movie of the year?” and “What movie will win Best Picture at the Oscars?” are two entirely different questions. In 2023, the answer for both was arguably the same.

The Daniels’ “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — A24’s mind-bending mother-daughter story about life’s unexplainable questions and the lengths we will go for love — won over audiences and critics before taking home Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (for Michelle Yeoh), Best Supporting Actor (for Ke Huy Quan), Best Supporting Actress (for Jamie Lee Curtis), and Best Original Screenplay at the 95th Academy Awards. Still, despite the film’s accolades, it has its critics — and you’re likely to find many a pundit who feels that the top prize ultimately should have gone to Todd Field’s chillier, less crowd-pleasing “Tár” instead.

As long as there have been award shows, movie fans have...

David Bordwell, the noted film scholar, teacher, author and researcher known for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm of cinema with movie lovers everywhere, has died. He was 76.

Bordwell died Thursday after a long illness, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced. He taught at the school from 1973 until his retirement in 2004 and was its Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the time of his death.

For more than two decades, Bordwell supplied commentaries, visual and written essays and interviews for films in the Criterion Collection and was seen and heard on 50 insightful episodes of Observations on Film Art on the Criterion Channel.

In a statement, Criterion called him “a great, longtime friend and a tireless champion of cinema who spent decades imparting his wisdom and passion onto film lovers around the world.”

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Bordwell wrote his essential textbooks Film Art: An Introduction,...

He simply may have watched more movies than anyone else alive. That’s the kind of legendary detail that followed film scholar David Bordwell, dead at 76 after a long struggle with a degenerative lung disease.

Was that true? Impossible to determine, and Bordwell’s cinephilia was never about bragging or the accumulation of knowledge to score points — but instead, to share with others and enrich our collective understanding of cinema. If you studied film on any level in academia, you almost certainly have heard his name.

For several generations of film students, you read Bordwell’s “Film Art: An Introduction” in your fall freshman Film 101 class. That was me in 2004, and I believe that book was already on its seventh edition by that point — it had first been published in 1979. If you went deeper into your studies, you’d undoubtedly encounter his “Film History” textbook as well. Both of these...

Although he has personally competed for the Best Picture Oscar as a qualifying producer of just four films, Martin Scorsese is responsible for directing 10 of the top Academy Award category’s nominees, including 2024 contender “Killers of the Flower Moon.” This recent improvement upon his total makes him only the third filmmaker in Oscars history to helm a double-digit amount of Best Picture nominees. Including him, six people who were already credited with directing at least one nominee rose higher in the ranks this year.

The previous Scorsese films that vied for Best Picture are 2007 winner “The Departed” (for which he earned his sole directing trophy) and nominees “Taxi Driver” (1977), “Raging Bull” (1981), “Goodfellas” (1991), “Gangs of New York” (2003), “The Aviator” (2005), “Hugo” (2012), “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2014), and “The Irishman” (2020). Of the 10, he received producing notices for the most recent four and directing bids for all but “Taxi Driver.” The only ones who...

John Ford is the four-time Oscar-winning director who made over 140 films in his long career, spanning the silent era through the 1960s. Yet how many of those titles are classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of Ford’s greatest movies, ranked worst to best.

To this day, Ford holds the all-time Oscar record for Best Director victories with four: “The Informer” (1935), “The Grapes of Wrath” (1940), “How Green Was My Valley” (1941), and “The Quiet Man” (1952). Of those, only “How Green Was My Valley” also won Best Picture (Ford also competed as a producer on “The Quiet Man.”).

Interestingly enough, the one Best Director nomination he lost was for the film that had perhaps the most profound impact on his career: “Stagecoach” (1939). The first of many westerns Ford shot in his beloved Monument Valley, it was also the beginning of a long and iconic career with leading man John Wayne,...

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

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

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

Voting for the 89th New York Film Critics Circle Awards has ended and the awards have been announced. The NYFCC winners list is one of the most anticipated in the awards season leading up to the Oscars, partly due to it being the first major critics group to issue awards each year, partly due to the exceptional caliber of its members (among whom IndieWire’s Kate Erbland and David Ehrlich are counted) and partly due to their inclination to embrace true cinephilia rather than awards season narratives. Check out the full winners list below.

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Oppenheimer,” and “May December” were the only films to win two awards each. “Flower Moon” won the top prize, Best Film, along with Best Actress for Lily Gladstone. Christopher Nolan won Best Director for “Oppenheimer,” which also took Best Cinematography for Hoyte van Hoytema. The two films, from Apple and Universal respectively,...

If you saw "The Fabelmans" — and judging from the film's underwhelming box office, you probably didn't — you might think you know exactly how Steven Spielberg broke into show business. Snap Wexley hired him to work on the hit TV sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," he got great advice from an ornery John Ford, and the rest was history.

Except Steven Spielberg didn't really work on "Hogan's Heroes," and he didn't get advice from John Ford when he was actually starting out in the industry. Instead, he met the legendary director of "How Green Was My Valley" and "The Searchers" when he was only 15 years old. It turns out that Steven Spielberg isn't really above smudging the truth a bit in his movies, if he thinks the truth gets in the way of a good story.

And like all good stories, "The Fabelmans" had to end somewhere. It didn't take "Sammy Fabelman" into his actual,...

Martin Scorsese is one of the greatest movie makers of all time, with titles such as “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” and “The Irishman.” The Academy Awards think that highly of him, too. Scorsese has reaped nine Best Director nominations. That tally ties him with Steven Spielberg. Here’s the breakdown of Best Director bids for both of them:

Scorsese:

“Raging Bull” in 1981 — lost to Robert Redford for “Ordinary People.” “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1989 — lost to Barry Levinson for “Rain Man.” “Goodfellas” in 1991 — lost to Kevin Costner for “Dances With Wolves.” “Gangs of New York” in 2003 — lost to Roman Polanski for “The Pianist.” “The Aviator” in 2005 — lost to Clint Eastwood for “Million Dollar Baby.” “The Departed” in 2007 — Won. “Hugo” in 2012 — lost to Michel Hazanavicius for “The Artist.” “The Wolf of Wall Street” in 2014 — lost to Alfonso Cuarón for “Gravity.” “The Irishman” in 2020 — lost to Bong Joon Ho for “Parasite.

Exclusive: The hammer just went down over the weekend on the one and only Oscar win for Citizen Kane, a 1941 movie many still consider the crown jewel of Hollywood, the greatest ever made.

In a Heritage Auctioneers “Hollywood Entertainment” auction that among many other items featured several from the career of Kane’s star, director and co-writer Orson Welles, the prize get was his 1941 Oscar for Original Screenplay that he shared with Herman Mankiewicz. Of the film’s nine nominations including Picture, Director and Actor for Welles, it was the single victory for the movie (How Green Was My Valley won Best Picture). The Welles statuette had a starting bid of $250,000 and sold to an unknown bidder for $645,000 (inclusive of buyer’s premium).

It, uh, gets a little complicated from there.

Heritage Auctions

This is not the original Oscar statuette that Welles — who didn’t even attend the actual ceremony — won.

Over a year after his untimely death in May 2022, Ray Liotta has just been honored with a Primetime Emmy nomination for his supporting performance on the Apple TV+ limited series “Black Bird.” This recognition comes after he received Critics Choice and Gold Derby TV Award notices for the same role. As the 11th person (and first in 25 years) to posthumously compete for an Emmy as a non-continuing program performer, he is just one step away from breaking new ground as the first deceased limited series acting winner in TV academy history.

Liotta’s “Black Bird” character, James Keene Sr., is the father of real-life convict James Keene Jr., whose 10-year prison sentence for dealing narcotics was ultimately shortened after he helped coax a confession out of serial killer Larry Hall. Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser also received 2023 Emmy nominations for their respective lead and supporting performances as Keene Jr.

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

When we think of great Hollywood directors, we think of names like John Ford, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, and moving on up to the likes of Steven Spielberg. These are filmmakers who not only had strong artistic and creative instincts and abilities, but they also knew how to translate those skills into making films that appealed to gigantic mass audiences. They made the films that Hollywood always strives to make.

Unquestionably, another filmmaker who belongs on that list is Alfred Hitchcock, the so-dubbed "Master of Suspense." That moniker suits him perfectly, as he was able to craft some of the most tense pictures ever produced in Hollywood. He perfectly understood set-up and payoff. He knew how to ride the line between euphemism and explicitness,...

Howard Hawks was the Oscar-nominated director who has become a favorite among cinephiles, praised as a master of genre entertainments. But how many of his titles have remained classics? Let’s take a look back at 20 of Hawks’ greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1896, Hawks had a background in engineering and aviation before turning to filmmaking during the silent era. He proved himself to be a versatile talent, adapting his direct, fast-paced style to a variety of genres, including comedies, westerns, film noir, adventures (“Only Angels Have Wings”), gangster epics (“Scarface”) and war dramas.

Although Hawks often explored the codes of masculinity in films starring Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and Cary Grant, he was noted for his strong-willed, fast talking female characters, coined the “Hawksian woman.” The battle of the sexes was never more evenhanded than it was in one of his films, thanks to the likes of Katharine Hepburn,...

Fort Apache actor John Wayne had experience working with a wide array of his peers on sets over the years. His conservative political beliefs put him at odds with many co-stars over the years, but he still had a certain charm that enticed many of those around him. Wayne went out of his way to help those in need on his movie sets, which was exactly the case when a female co-star fainted while working on Fort Apache due to heat stroke.

John Wayne-collaborator John Ford became worried about Anna Lee John Wayne as Capt. Kirby York | Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images

Wayne had several collaborators that he was closely associated with over the course of his filmography. Director John Ford was one of those, who amplified the actor to movie star status with 1939’s Stagecoach. However, Wayne’s connection with the filmmaker ultimately gave him the unique opportunity...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) offers a wide assortment of movies from the past that strikes nostalgia. However, there are also plenty of gems that allow audiences to discover other oldies to fill in their cinematic blindspots. Looking for something to watch this weekend between March 24-26? Here’s a look at the upcoming programming.

Friday, March 24 Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel | John Springer Collection/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Starting just after midnight Eastern Standard Time, the TCM movies officially kick off the ending of the week in a big way. Ranging from the Oscar-nominated Mutiny on the Bounty from 1962 to the four-time Oscar-winning Network, there’s a little something for all viewers.

The notable standouts here are The 400 Blows, Diner, Dr. Strangelove, and Network.

The 400 Blows (1959) – 12:30 a.m. Est Diner (1982) – 2:30 a.m. Est Metropolitan (1990) – 4:30 a.m. Est The Sea Wolf (1941) – 6:15 a.m.

For well over four decades, the name “John Ford” has been synonymous with Hollywood classics.

Ford has been hailed as one of the greatest directors of all time, with a long list of acclaimed films that have won multiple Academy Awards. His subject matter ranged from westerns to war movies and even his own slice of Irish-American culture.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the life and career of John Ford, discussing his early years in Hollywood and the lasting impact he has had on cinema today. We’ll also explore some memorable moments from his cinematic legacy.

So whether you are a film buff or just have an appreciation for classic movies, join us as we pay tribute to the legendary filmmaker John Ford.

John Ford. By Allan warren – Own work, Cc By-sa 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16706120 Overview of John Ford...

With final Oscar balloting closed on March 7, we’re continuing with our sixth annual series of interviews with Academy voters from different branches for their unfiltered takes on what got picked, overlooked, and overvalued in the 2023 award season. Interview edited for brevity.

Best Picture

Well, this year is the year of the repeat for me. I watched more movies a second time to try and figure out why I didn’t like them the first time.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” I watched three and a half times. I thought it was a generational thing. But then everyone else I know loved it. So I watched it once in the theater and I go, “I don’t really get it.” And I tried it a second time on the [Academy screening] portal. And I gave up halfway. And then it won all the awards. And I said to myself, “I’m not sure,...

Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences attempts to award Oscars to the “best” film or artist in each category that year, and each year it fails at least a few times.

There is always room for disagreement on what constitutes “best”: how can we possibly compare Toy Story 3, Inception and The King’s Speech? And yet voters did just that in 2010.

It is similarly impossible to nail down all the egregious choices in academy history, but here are a few of the most glaring errors, with just days to go until the 2023 ceremony. Starting with the granddaddy of them all...

How Green Was My Valley

Beat: Citizen Kane to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography in 1941

It takes a bit of searching these days to find someone who has a) seen John Ford’s Welsh melodrama How Green Was My Valley and b...

When a couple of Hollywood awards veterans (read: Medicare recipients) get together to slug it out on Zoom about their issues with some past Oscar decisions in advance of the 95th Academy Awards next Sunday. well, let’s just say the dust tends to fly. That’s what happened a few days ago when Gold Derby editor, president and founder Tom O’Neil and news and features editor Ray Richmond met up to weigh in on some of the things that have stuck in their craw during the first 94 years of the ceremony. Watch the video slugfest above.

What did they talk about? Well, O’Neil tossed out the opening salvo in asking if there’s ever been a worse decision and bigger outrage than the one in 1942 that found “Citizen Kane” – “The greatest movie ever made according to every AFI survey,” he noted – losing out for Best Picture to “How Green Was My Valley.

For nearly 100 years, pundits have predicted the outcome of Oscar voting. Sometimes it’s an educated guess, but it’s a guess nevertheless, since a minimal number of PricewaterhouseCoopers execs know the actual tallies and they never talk. So pundits often look to Oscar history to back up their theories, like tribal natives trying to predict their future by watching smoke from a volcano.

Too often, people talk about voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as if they work as a unit: “They will never vote for this” or “they always love such-and-such.” One of the fun aspects of predictions is that Academy history is like Scripture: You can always find something to back up your claims.

This year, voters nominated 10 very different films for best picture. Each has inspired predictions about why it couldn’t win because “they” won’t go for it. But actually,...

If you read our Gold Derby combined odds for Oscar Best Picture, you see that the race is over and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is about to be crowned at the Academy Awards on March 12. But the favorite doesn’t always win the horserace. Upsets happen. The longshot comes in. Jaws drop. Calculations go awry. Something that no one could see coming winds up coming in. Chaos reigns.

And we love it.

If there is anything we’ve learned, it’s that there are no guarantees. Films that the majority think should have won, don’t. That’s particularly true in hindsight. “Citizen Kane,” widely regarded as the finest film of the 20th century, lost. So did the film many consider to be Martin Scorsese’s best, “Raging Bull.” “Moonlight” beat “La La Land.” “Crash” upset “Brokeback Mountain.” “Shakespeare in Love” upended “Saving Private Ryan.” “Chariots of Fire” snared the trophy over “Reds.

Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences attempts to award Oscars to the “best” film or artist in each category that year, and each year it fails at least a few times.

There is always room for disagreement on what constitutes “best”: how can we possibly compare Toy Story 3, Inception and The King’s Speech? And yet voters did just that in 2010.

It is similarly impossible to nail down all the egregious choices in academy history, but here are a few of the most glaring errors. Starting with the granddaddy of them all...

How Green Was My Valley

Beat: Citizen Kane to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography in 1941

It takes a bit of searching these days to find someone who has a) seen John Ford’s Welsh melodrama How Green Was My Valley and b) did not do so out of a morbid curiosity...

Predicting which movies will set the box office alight seems like an easy task, but there’s a reason studios get paid the big bucks to do so.

However, every so often, an acclaimed film can come along that absolutely tanks after being unveiled for the public.

Over the years, there have been a startling number of films that have struggled, or indeed failed, to recoup their budget, and have consequently earned the “box office flop” label.

It’s hard to pin down exactly why movies such as these – Children of Men and It’s a Wonderful Life, to name a few – initially struggle to find an audience. Fortunatrely, though, the film’s quality shines through and it ultimately finds a fanbase beyond its theatrical release.

Thanks to the advent of streaming services, reliance on box office figures has diminished somewhat over the years. This also means that films which struggled...

No two ways about it: April’s a great month for the Criterion Channel, which (among other things; more in a second) adds two recent favorites. We’re thrilled at the SVOD premiere of Hamaguchi’s entrancing Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, our #3 of 2021, and Bruno Dumont’s lacerating France, featuring Léa Seydoux’s finest performance yet.

Ethan Hawke’s Adventures in Moviegoing runs the gamut from Eagle Pennell’s Last Night at the Alamo to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, while a 14-film John Ford retro (mostly) skips westerns altogether. And no notes on the Delphine Seyrig retro—multiple by Akerman, Ulrike Ottinger, Duras, a smattering of Buñuel, and Seyrig’s own film Be Pretty and Shut Up! That of all things might be the crown jewl.

See the full list of April titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

—

3 Bad Men, John Ford, 1926

Aar paar, Guru Dutt,...

“31 Days of Oscar” on Turner Classic Movies has recently made some fascinating, big changes in how it presents the movies in its latest, annual presentation of the top films that once competed for Hollywood’s highest honor.

Usually, the series showcases films that have either won or were nominated for Oscars. “This year we’re just presenting Oscar-winning movies,” notes the series’ savvy host Dave Karger, who contributes his predictions to Gold Derby. “So it’s only Oscar-winning movies for the entire month of March, 24 hours a day, no commercials. That gives us some cachet.”

Below are the air dates of just some Best Picture winners. See the full “31 Days of Oscar” schedule here and take note that the movies tend to be grouped by different decades each day. “That’s so interesting because you get to see how the Oscars have changed over this passage of time,” notes Karger.

The final voting for Sunday’s 94th Oscars has closed. What can we expect?

A two-year global pandemic, which is still in progress, changed the mindset of humankind, and the Hollywood industry. The awards season seemed to be back on track but just prior to the holiday break, events were being postponed, and a familiar dark passenger started showing its face once again, under different name variants.

It’s no secret that Oscar voters have been looking for a good mood. After the nominations were announced on Feb. 8, where Netflix’s “The Power of the Dog” led the charge with 12, it looked as though the streaming giant had finally arrived at its golden moment with the Academy after falling short with previous films like “Roma” (2018) and “The Trial of the Chicago 7” (2020).

Read more: Variety’s Awards Circuit Predictions Hub

I’ve long believed that the importance of the Academy...

Each year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences attempts to award Oscars to the “best” film or artist in each category that year, and each year it fails at least a few times.

There is always room for disagreement on what constitutes “best”: how can we possibly compare Toy Story 3, Inception and The King’s Speech? And yet voters did just that in 2010.

It is similarly impossible to nail down all the egregious choices in academy history, but here are a few of the most glaring errors. Starting with the granddaddy of them all...

How Green Was My Valley

Beat:Citizen Kane to Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography in 1941

It takes a bit of searching these days to find someone who has a) seen John Ford’s Welsh melodrama How Green Was My Valley and b) did not do so out of a morbid curiosity...

Ever since “The Life of Emile Zola” became the first film to win Oscars for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Joseph Schildkraut) in 1938, occurrences of films receiving nominations in both categories have been rather common. Of the 511 features that have contended for the top honor since the supporting awards were first bestowed 86 years ago, 194 (38%) have had at least one performance by a featured male cast member recognized as well. In that time, the double victory initiated by “The Life of Emile Zola” has been replicated by 16 more films, from “How Green Was My Valley” to “Green Book”.

A fair amount of these nearly 200 performances were considered surprise nominees. Some actors, such as Max von Sydow and Jonah Hill were previously thought of as longshots after missing major precursors, while others, like Lakeith Stanfield, truly came from out of the blue. Since all three of these men appeared in Best Picture contenders,...

For almost 100 years, the motion picture academy has honored the best in film, but many times the winners aren’t always the best remembered, or the films that go on to become classics. At the 14th ceremony, “How Green Was My Valley” famously won Best Picture over “Citizen Kane,” now considered by most filmmakers, historians and cinephiles as the greatest movie ever made – and even those who disagree acknowledge its profound influence on the industry. Additionally, there were quite a few now-classic films and performances that either didn’t win, or were snubbed altogether. Let’s flashback 80 years ago to the 1942 Oscars ceremony.

SEE15 biggest Oscar Best Picture upsets, ranked

Hosted by Bob Hope, the ceremony took place on February 26, less than three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and a month after beloved actress Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash – while returning home after selling war bonds.

Dedicated cinephiles love to try to guess which film will take home Best Picture on Oscar night. It’s the last ceremony in the movie awards season, and it’s fun to follow who’s won what, making their chances better or worse come the big night, and often it’s easy to guess who’ll win. But sometimes all the carefully prepared Gold Derby predictions and calculations go out the window, and there’s a surprise winner announced at the end of the evening.

Throughout the academy’s illustrious history, voters have tended to favor dramas, especially ones based on historical fact. Most Best Picture winners have won critics’ choice awards, Golden Globe awards, BAFTAs and awards from the Directors, Producers and Screen Actors guilds. Most will have several nominations, specifically in “bigger” categories such as directing, acting and writing. All these elements can help predict which will win...

It’s hard to fathom that the Oscars may no longer be about theatrical releases and seeing cinema in the ideal environment with the best sound and picture possible (mostly). Many movies are still getting the necessary one-week theatrical runs to be eligible for consideration, but even that is no longer mandatory, thanks to some of the allowances made because of the Covid pandemic.

For the 2020 Oscars, none of the eight Best Picture nominees received a theatrical release in New York City or LA because movie theaters weren’t open in either city until March 2021, after the eligibility period. Even so, the eventual Best Picture winner, Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland,” played at drive-ins as part of film festivals in Telluride and New York, the rare opportunity for anyone to see that movie on the big screen.

See‘Dune’ predicted to receive same number of Oscar nominations as ‘Joker,’ but there’s a twist

Instead,...

The triple-threat talent Gordon Parks gets carte blanche to film his own autobiographical novel back in his old home town — and the result is one of the better depictions of growing up black in the Midwest. Parks’ memories don’t wield a fiery political agenda, nor does he say that ‘there were good people on both sides.’ It was what it was and it wasn’t always pretty. As young Newt, Kyle Johnson ‘does the right thing’ and his experience helps explain the pervading lack of faith in justice, to put it mildly. Parks’ beautiful film remains positive, reflecting his warm memories, and his direction gives us a full ensemble of black talent at work: this is said to be the first Hollywood film produced and directed by a black man.

The Learning Tree

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1107

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 107 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 14, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Kyle Johnson,...

Dear Evan Hansen,

It turns out this wasn’t an amazing movie after all. This isn’t going to be an acting tour-de-force or a masterpiece for cinema because why would it be?

I know this because you’re played by Ben Platt, and all our hopes are pinned on Ben Platt, a 27-year-old who looks 35 but overly doused with the same de-aging technology from “The Irishman.” You better count your blessings that the Golden Globes are canceled this year, because if you thought Film Twitter was angry at James Corden’s nom for “The Prom,” then you can’t appreciate this dodging of the social media equivalent to the Book of Revelation. But hey, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve given permission to Kristen Chenoweth and Idina Menzel to reprise their roles in “Wicked” because anyone can play a teenager.

Maybe if you could just see that...

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The 93rd annual Academy Awards came and went with no shortage of excitement, and “Nomadland” became the 93rd film to be honored with the Academy’s most prestigious award, for Best Picture. You’re certainly not alone if hearing those stats made you wonder how many of the other 93 you’ve seen. The Oscars often rekindle our interest in Hollywood history, regardless of whether you’re a casual viewer or a die hard cinephile. And watching the Best Picture winners is a great way to take a crash course in film history, so we rounded up a selection of box sets for you to get started.

The awards are highly subjective, and some of the recipients inspired controversy,...

Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” is widely regarded as the greatest movie ever made, but it no longer has its 100% score on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The film’s perfect score was broken last month after Rotten Tomatoes added a negative review published by the Chicago Tribune almost 80 years ago on May 7, 1941. The 80-year-old review was the 116th review added to the “Citizen Kane” Rotten Tomatoes page and was the one negative review that ruined Welles’ perfect score.

The Chicago Tribune’s negative “Citizen Kane” review was published under the pseudonym “Mae Tinee” and accompanied with the headline “Citizen Kane Fails to Impress Critic as Greatest Ever Filmed.” The review was published a few days after “Citizen Kane” first started rolling out into theaters in 1941. The critic branded the movie “a flop” and wrote that the film’s noir-inspired visuals and use of shadows “gives one the creeps.”

“It’s interesting.

Orson Welles’s classic, Sofia Coppola’s platonic meet-cute and Ang Lee’s cowboy masterpiece – here are the greatest losers in Hollywood

This is it – the key moment in the great narrative of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences getting it wrong. Welles’s Citizen Kane lost out to … what was it again? It was How Green Was My Valley, a stirring family drama set in the valleys of south Wales. Strong, sturdy stuff – but a horse-and-buggy compared to Welles’s supersonic rocket ship.

Photo: Best Picture Snubs The Oscar for Best Picture may be the highest honor that a film could earn, but the Academy members who vote on the matter are anything but infallible--in fact, some of them don’t even watch the nominated movies at all. Audiences are often disappointed by the pick for Best Picture, but subjectivity mandates that there will always be some reasonable dissent--that said, this article will look back at some of the most widely agreed upon upsets that warrant a closer inspection. Related article: The Complete List of 2021 Oscar Nominations – Celebrations, Surprises & Snubs | The Show Must Go On Related article: April Movies Release Schedule: The Most Accurate List of Every Movie Coming Out in April – Live Updates Sometimes, it just boils down to a difficult choice between incredible films--1942, for instance, saw John Ford’s ‘How Green Was My Valley’ win Best Picture over ‘The Maltese Falcon...

Despite the proliferation of streaming services, it’s becoming increasingly clear that any cinephile only needs subscriptions to a few to survive. Among the top of our list are The Criterion Channel and Mubi and now they’ve each unveiled their stellar April line-ups.

Over at The Criterion Channel, highlights include spotlights on Ennio Morricone, the Marx Brothers, Isabel Sandoval, and Ramin Bahrani, plus Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Frank Borzage’s Moonrise, the brand-new restoration of Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk, and one of last year’s best films, David Osit’s Mayor.

At Mubi (where we’re offering a 30-day trial), they’ll have the exclusive streaming premiere of two of the finest festival films from last year’s circuit, Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema, plus Philippe Garrel’s latest The Salt of Tears, along with films from Terry Gilliam, George A. Romero,...

7 random things that happened on this day, March 5th, in showbiz history...

Best Actor and Best Actress, Victor McLaglen & Bette Davis

1936 The 8th Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1935. Victor McLaglen (The Informer) and Bette Davis (Dangerous) take the acting Oscars. Mutiny on the Bounty wins Best Picture (and nothing else). That happened three times in the first eight years of Oscar history and has literally never happened since. That same night John Ford wins the first of his four Best Director prizes (the all time record) for The Informer. Curiously only one of his Best Director wins, How Green Was My Valley, came with a companion Best Picture win. The four wins without much help from Best Picture frontrunner status is such a crazy record if you think on it for even half a second. It's hard to imagine that it will ever be broken...

The 2020 Best Supporting Actor lineup, which included performances that ranged from 43 to 56 minutes long, proved that high screen times are fairly common in the category. Six actors have won the award with over one hour of screen time, while an additional 18 nominees have passed that mark. Here is a look at the 10 performances that rank as the longest of them all (and here are the 10 longest winners):

10. Jeff Bridges (“Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”)

1 hour, 6 minutes, 23 seconds (57.74% of the film)

After Mickey Rooney and Sal Mineo, Bridges became the third man to receive two acting Oscar nominations by age 25, and there has not been another in the 45 years since. His second bid for playing the titular Lightfoot also earned him a spot on this list and was the 11th nominated supporting male performance to have over one hour of screen time. Bridges finally scored his first win at age 60, as a lead in “Crazy Heart,...

Paul Raci, 72, has already won several critics organization’s awards including from the National Society of Film Critics for his performance as Joe, a recovering alcoholic who lost his hearing in the Vietnam War. Joe runs a house for recovering deaf addicts that Ruben (Riz Ahmed), a drug addict who lost his hearing playing drums, goes to live. Raci ranks in the top five contenders for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars according to our exclusive odds.

And there’s a good reason wh: the actor gives such a natural, forceful performance as the no-nonsense Joe-his parents were deaf. He’s also fluent in American Sign Language and has appeared in some dozen productions of the Los Angeles-based Deaf West Theater and is lead performer of the Asl Black Sabbath tribute band Hands of Doom. And just as Joe, Raci is also a Vietnam Vet.

Character actors have won Oscars...

David Fincher’s “Mank” isn’t a work of history. It’s a film first and foremost.

“If you’re talking about the truth, you have to circumnavigate some of the fact,” Fincher tells Variety in this week’s cover story.

And yet, “Mank” sticks much closer to the truth than most fact-based films, if the Variety Archives are any indication.

Variety in the 1930s and ’40s was like a community bulletin board: Aside from covering the business, reporters wrote about daily life in a company town. Reading the archives is like a “Mank Study Guide,” with support for virtually every plot point and detail in the new movie.

For example, the Netflix film features a circus-themed party thrown by Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst, who in fact threw a similar event for 400 guests:

“W.R. Hearst in gold cloth bolero, and big red bow tie, cut a gigantic birthday cake … Bette Davis,...

Movies about the making of movies rarely find an audience. That long-standing Hollywood dictum will be defied this weekend with the Netflix release of Mank, but here’s the rub: The central character is a critic who becomes a screenwriter who becomes a victim.

That may be a clue as to why Mank this week is receiving reviews somewhere between worshipful and orgasmic. Mank is the perfect tonic for film critics who have few movies to review and no festivals or award shows around to herald their “raves.”

None of is this to deny that Mank represents an exercise in film artistry, as well as in good timing. Consider its backstory: Orson Welles arrived in Hollywood in the pit of the 1930s Depression as a self-avowed young genius aspiring to make a movie about a billionaire, William Randolph Hearst.

The studios were not thrilled about Citizen Kane. MGM had just...