News

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.NEWSQueer.Mubi has canceled its annual Turkish film festival—Mubi Fest Istanbul—after the Kadıköy District Governorate of Istanbul barred a screening of the opening film, Luca Guadagnino’s Queer (2024), citing its “provocative content.”During Warner Bros. Discovery’s quarterly earnings call, CEO David Zaslav waxes optimistic about Donald Trump’s reelection, arguing that it “may offer a pace of change and an opportunity for consolidation that…would provide a real positive and accelerated impact on this industry that’s needed.” Meanwhile, other industry execs share concerns about the impact of high tariffs on the international film market.Multiple cinematography organizations have condemned an op-ed penned by Marek Żydowicz, the founder and CEO of Camerimage, the Polish film festival.

Paul Engelen, the British makeup designer who earned two Emmys and two Oscar nominations in a fabulous career that included work on Reds, Batman, The Phantom Menace, Gladiator and Game of Thrones, has died. He was 75.

Engelen died Nov. 3 of cancer at his home in West Sussex, England, his son-in-law (and fellow makeup designer) Daniel Lawson Johnston told The Hollywood Reporter.

Engelen also did makeup for three James Bonds — Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig — on the 007 films The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), Die Another Day (2002), Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008).

He teamed with Blake Edwards on Victor/Victoria (1982), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982) and Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), with Steven Spielberg on Empire of the Sun (1987) and Munich (2005) and with Ridley Scott on Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Robin Hood (2010).

Engelen shared his first Academy Award nom with Rick Baker...

When Alfonso Cuarón approached Apple with his idea of turning Renée Knight’s 2015 novel “Disclaimer” into a five-and-a-half-hour psychological thriller, he was very clear about one thing. “I don’t know [how] to do television.”

“For me, it’s a bit too late in the game to start learning,” he says, thinking back to that initial pitch as he prepares to screen “Disclaimer” at the Toronto Film Festival following its acclaimed debut at Venice. Instead, Cuarón says he and stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline and Sacha Baron Cohen opted to “approach it in the way that I do a film.”

And there were precedents that he points to in cinema history for this kind of sprawling, narratively dense work; “Reds,” “1900,” “Fanny and Alexander,” “Once Upon a Time in America,” even “Twin Peaks” served as inspirations for what he was hoping to pull off. Many of those films were set in the past,...

Election season is in the air and Turner Classic Movies is here to celebrate. Starting on September 6 and continuing every Friday up until this year’s general election, TCM will be running a nine-week limited series entitled “Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” This cinematic showcase is inspired by The New Republic rankings released in June 2023 and includes selections such as “All the King’s Men,” “Germany, Year Zero,” and “High and Low.”

To introduce the upcoming series, TCM host Ben Mankiewicz took to Washington D.C. for a trailer highlighting some of the films featured, as well as special guests like Stacey Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and John Turturro.

“I grew up here in Washington D.C.,” Mankiewicz said, the Capitol Building behind him. “My father’s life was politics — capital P politics. Though I went in a different direction, I understood at an early age,...

In the run-up to Election Day, TCM is going after the movie lovers’ popular vote by showing 50 films over nine successive Fridays under the banner Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.

The series runs Sept. 6 to Nov. 1 — four days before America votes for its next president — and features TCM host Ben Mankiewicz in conversation with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Lee Grant, Sally Field, Andy Garcia, Melissa Etheridge, John Turturro, Bill Maher, Alexander Payne, Diane Lane, Josh Mankiewicz, Barry Levinson, Maureen Dowd, Stacey Abrams and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Watch the trailer here.

Making Change showcases half of the movies unveiled by The New Republic in the rankings it released in June 2023. The films on TCM span the years 1915 to 2016 (from D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation to Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro); the whole thing kicks off with the No.

Welcome back to Oscars Playback, in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng revisit Oscar ceremonies and winners of yesteryear. This week, we cover the 55th Academy Awards in 1983, honoring the films of 1982.

There was no suspense as to what would win heading into the ceremony. “Gandhi” dominated from top to bottom, winning eight awards from its leading 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Richard Attenborough and Best Actor for Ben Kingsley. The biopic did not have a Best Actress contender, but even if it did, there was no beating Meryl Streep, who prevailed for “Sophie’s Choice.” She was such a lock that even fellow nominee Debra Winger‘s parents were rooting for Streep.

See Oscars Playback: When ‘Chariots of Fire’ outran ‘Reds’ for the gold

1982 was a breakout year for Jessica Lange, who became the first performer in 38 years to receive two acting nominations...

A great ending can be the hardest thing for a writer. For Robert Towne — who died Monday, having written and reshaped some of the most important films of the 1970s — finding the best way to wrap up a film was a career-long challenge. In the script that earned him an Oscar, the downbeat “Forget it, Jake — it’s Chinatown” finale was famously Roman Polanski’s idea.

And yet, there’s undeniable poetry in Towne’s passing: The Oscar winner died 50 years (and two weeks) after “Chinatown” opened, basking in the fresh round of appreciation that the half-century anniversary brought. Towne was a natural raconteur whose stories were every bit as rich as his screenplays — as evidenced by an in-depth Variety interview that ran last month — and whose best writing often went uncredited.

For those who weren’t around to have witnessed Towne’s transformative impact on American cinema in the 1970s,...

Writer-director Robert Towne, an Oscar winner for his original script for “Chinatown” and an acknowledged master of the art of screenwriting, has died. He was 89.

Towne died Monday at his home in Los Angeles, publicist Carrie McClure said in a statement.

During a long career that began in the 1960s, when he went to work as an actor and writer for B-movie director Roger Corman, Towne became one of the most sought-after script doctors in movie history, called on time and again to solve structural problems and create great moments for other people’s films.

Towne came to prominence in the 1970s with three critical and commercial hits released within a 14-month period: “The Last Detail” (1973), “Chinatown” (1974) and “Shampoo” (1975). All three screenplays were Oscar- nominated, with “Chinatown” winning in its year.

Hired as a “special consultant” by Warren Beatty for 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” Towne restructured the picture to dramatize the outlaws’ impending doom.

Welcome back to Oscars Playback, in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng revisit Oscar ceremonies and winners of yesteryear. This week, we cover the 54th Academy Awards in 1982, honoring the films of 1981.

Thanks to its leading 12 nominations, most assumed Oscar night would be seeing red, er, “Reds” walk away with the top prize. Warren Beatty‘s ambitious historical epic netted him acting, directing, writing and producing nominations, the second time he achieved the feat after 1978’s “Heaven Can Wait,” but Beatty wound up only winning Best Director. Best Picture turned into a race between “Reds,” surprise hit “On Golden Pond” — the second highest-grossing film of the year and 10-time nominee — and Olympics drama “Chariots of Fire,” a seven-time nominee. Going into the final award, the three films had each won three Oscars. And in the kind of upset we see more in sports than awards shows,...

Diane Keaton has impressed the audience with remarkable performances in timeless classics like The Godfather, Manhattan, and Reds. She has quite the collection of awards to her name including some very prestigious ones and why wouldn’t she? She’s Diane Keaton, after all. Diane Keaton redefined the modern heroine in cinema and brought absolute authenticity to every character she set out to conquer.

A still from The Godfather (1972) | Paramount Pictures

One of the finest works of Diane Keaton’s career so far has got to be the 1977 film, Annie Hall, where she played the titular character. The actress’ performance was so raw and well-received that she went on to win her first and only Academy Award. However, she starred in yet another brilliant film in the same year that was equally deserving of the nomination and many fans believe that she should’ve won an Oscar for this film instead.

A good movie hug, one that’s more than a neat tie-up, can pack a wallop, especially in the final stretch of a gripping story. The proportions of bittersweet angst and healthy schmaltz vary. The situation might be a charged reunion, a heartrending goodbye or a romantic declaration. Films as unalike as It’s a Wonderful Life, E.T. and Reds offer memorable clinches. But I can’t think of a screen embrace as packed with complex emotion and metaphoric zing as the one that closes Dogfight.

Nancy Savoca’s 1991 drama, digitally restored and arriving April 30 in a Blu-ray special edition from the Criterion Collection, defies genre expectations at every turn. In certain ways — beautiful ways — it’s as winningly awkward as its protagonists, portrayed by two of the most gifted risk-takers of their generation, River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. Thoroughly cinematic yet also endearingly stagy (no wonder it inspired a...

Luca Guadagnino’s tennis relationship drama “Challengers” (Amazon MGM) opens Friday amidst chatter that it represents the rarest of films — a wide-release American sex sizzler, an erotically charged story with young actors with sexual impulses central to its plot.

The marketing forebears for “Challengers” are akin to movies that we’ve not seen in a long time like “Carnal Knowledge,” “Body Heat,” “Don’t Look Now,” and “Fatal Attraction.” These films, where sex can be sweaty and dangerous, were elevated by big stars who dared to play off their images. Other examples include Kevin Costner (“No Way Out”), Debra Winger (“An Officer and a Gentleman”), Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver (“The Year of Living Dangerously”), Jane Fonda (“Klute”), and Warren Beatty.

In the “Challengers” press tour, Zendaya (also a producer here) — with six of her previous seven live-action theatrical releases having domestic grosses of $100 million or more — took pains to dispel...

The 2024 Oscar nominees for Best Actor are Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Colman Domingo (“Rustin”), Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”), and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”). Murphy (16/5) is favored to win by our odds, followed in order by Giamatti (18/5), Cooper (9/2), Wright (9/2), and Domingo (9/2).

Whereas last year’s lead male lineup was the first in almost nine decades to consist entirely of Oscars newcomers, this one includes three rookies and two general veterans. Standing alone in having already competed for this specific award is Cooper, who was previously recognized for “Silver Linings Playbook” (2013), “American Sniper” (2015), and “A Star Is Born” (2019). Since he personally helmed both “A Star Is Born” and “Maestro,” he is now the fourth person to direct himself to multiple acting nominations, following Laurence Olivier, Warren Beatty, and Clint Eastwood.

Cooper is concurrently nominated for co-writing the original screenplay for “Maestro” with past winner Josh Singer and is directly involved...

30 years ago, "Schindler's List" earned Steven Spielberg his first Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. It was a long-delayed coronation, one that was contingent on the director putting away childish things and making a serious movie for grown-ups. Spielberg was obviously deserving, but these should've been Oscars number five and six after "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial".

Though the Academy never showed Spielberg the love for his escapist classics, John Williams certainly made out well. He won Best Original Score for "Jaws" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" before taking home his fifth overall Oscar for "Schindler's List" -- which was as daunting of a challenge for Williams as it was for Spielberg (who credits the film with restoring his faith in filmmaking). Williams's music had always been an integral component of Spielberg's movies, but he'd never composed anything this somber for the director. In fact,...

The films in contention for the 2024 Best Original Screenplay Oscar are “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Holdovers,” “Maestro,” “May December,” and “Past Lives.” Our odds currently indicate that “Anatomy of a Fall” (16/5) will take the prize, followed in order of likelihood by “The Holdovers” (37/10), “Past Lives” (9/2), “Maestro” (9/2), and “May December” (9/2).

Of the eight individual writers behind these five films, only Josh Singer (“Maestro”) has earned recognition in this category before. Indeed, he is looking to go two-for-two here after succeeding on his 2016 bid for “Spotlight,” which he co-wrote with its director, Tom McCarthy. Coincidentally, he shares his new nomination with the director of “Maestro,” Bradley Cooper, who also has a personal stake in the Best Picture and Best Actor races as a producer and star of the same film.

With this original writing notice, Cooper’s Oscars resume now includes five different categories, the remaining two of which are Best...

Given the back-to-back additions of Alicia Vikander and Viola Davis to the list of Best Supporting Actress Oscar winners with the five highest amounts of screen time, one might have reasonably expected subsequent recipients of the award to follow suit. However, since they all clocked in under 29 minutes, none of the last half dozen victors even cracked the top 30, and that trend is almost sure to continue in 2024. Indeed, all but one of the category’s five current hopefuls are nominated for performances that are shorter than at least half of the ones that have ever merited this honor.

The 2024 supporting actress nominees have an average screen time of 29 minutes and 48 seconds, or 22.97% of their respective films. These amounts are almost four minutes and over 3% greater than last year’s. In terms of physical time, their average is the 16th highest in the category’s 88-year history, while their percentage mean is the 25th highest.

One of the greatest crime movies of all time, "The French Connection" is William Friedkin's gritty drama based on a true story. Gene Hackman stars as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, a no-nonsense, rule-breaking cop who gets caught up investigating a case in which the Italian mob is bringing drugs into America with the help of a French heroin-smuggling syndicate. But this isn't an open-and-shut case. The lawmen are seemingly foiled at every turn, and things end on a shocking, bleak note. It's an amazing movie with one of the best chase sequences ever captured on film. "The French Connection" was released nearly 53 years ago, which means many of its cast members have left us, along with director Friedkin, who died last year. But a few are still around. So here are the only major actors still alive from "The French Connection."

Read more: The 20 Best Detective Movies Ranked

Gene...

Last week, The Hollywood Reporter reported that cinephiles were sharing “samizdat” links to Woody Allen’s latest film Coup de Chance from a French-to-Dutch-to-English translation, and New Yorkers were attending clandestine screenings at an East Village bar/event space. Today, THR can exclusively report that those who wish to see the 88-year-old’s latest project, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival in early September to (mostly) positive reviews, can do so without slinking around or needing secret codes.

MPI Media Group will release the picture, Allen’s 50th theatrically released feature film as a director, for North American markets on April 5, 2024. A digital/VOD release will follow on April 12.

The movie, shot in France in French, stars Lou de Laâge (Respire, The Mad Woman’s Ball) as a self-aware trophy wife who reconnects with an old chum from the Lycée Français in New York, played by Niels Schneider (Heartbeats,...

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,...

Oppenheimer is ending the 2024 Golden Globes with a whopping five awards! The Christopher Nolan-directed film won the award for Best Motion Picture – Drama at the 2024 awards show Sunday.

“Can you hear my heart beating? Because it’s a go crazy,” said Emma Thomas, the film’s producer, who accepted the award on behalf of the cast and crew during the last award of the evening.

“This was just an incredible experience making this film. This is just the smallest portion of the many people that made the film what it is,...

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,...

As she strolls comfortably toward multiple Oscar nominations for “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig is on track to set several Academy Awards records tied to her age, gender and the movie’s financial success. In terms of more general achievements, perhaps the most impressive one in her reach is becoming the first filmmaker to have all of her initial three solo features contend for Best Picture. Over the past 95 years, many directors have had shots at earning that distinction and a few have come remarkably close, but none of their chances have been quite as strong as hers.

Since Gerwig did not produce her first two independently-directed films – “Lady Bird” (2017) and “Little Women” (2019) – and, per academy rules, cannot officially share in a “Barbie” Best Picture nomination due to her screen credit of “executive producer” (rather than the qualifying “producer” or “produced by”), she does not and will not soon have any bids...

Emma Thompson holds a distinct Oscars record. She is the only person in the history of the Academy Awards to win for both acting and writing. She took home the Best Actress trophy in 1993 for “Howard’s End.” Three years later, she collected an Oscar bookend with her Best Adapted Screenplay win for bringing Jane Austen‘s 1811 novel “Sense and Sensibility” to the screen.

Prior to Thompson’s double wins, several others contended for both acting and writing. Orson Welles won Best Original Screenplay in 1942 with Herman J. Mankiewicz for “Citizen Kane.” He also picked up a Best Actor nomination for the same film. Warren Beatty has a rich history in both acting and writing awards. He was nominated for Best Actor in 1968 for “Bonnie & Clyde,” in 1979 for “Heaven Can Wait, in 1982 for “Reds,” and in 1992″ for “Bugsy.” He picked up Original Screenplay bids in 1976 for “Shampoo” (shared with...

What do Natalie Portman, Margot Robbie and Emma Stone have in common? Aside from being in contention for this year’s best actress nominations, the three multiple-time nominated A-listers could follow in the footsteps of Frances McDormand in this year’s Oscar race.

All three women are producers on each of their films — Portman for “May December,” Robbie for “Barbie” and Stone for “Poor Things.” If any are nominated for best picture and acting, they would be the second (or third or fourth?) women recognized in both categories in the same year. The first was McDormand for “Nomadland” (2020), who went on to win her third and fourth statuettes, the first person ever to win both on the same night.

Read: Variety’s Awards Circuit for the latest Oscars predictions in all categories.

Robbie has received raves for her performance as “Stereotypical Barbie,” one of the versions in “Barbieland,” who is...

Some of Europe’s most acclaimed below-the-line talents will do a deep dive into the artistry of movie magic for In Between Stars and Scars: Masters of Cinema, a new documentary feature being produced by Yi Zhou’s Into the Sun Entertainment.

Triple Oscar-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, The Last Emperor, Reds), three-time production design winner Dante Ferretti (Hugo, Sweeney Todd, The Aviator), Oscar-winning film editor Thom Noble (Witness) and Academy Award-winning make-up artist Giorgio Gregorini (Suicide Squad) will feature in the doc, which was shot during the making of Zhou’s upcoming feature film debut, Stars and Scars, in Rome and Los Angeles.

All the involved talents are attached to work on the feature, an English-language sci-fi drama centered on the rare phenomenon known as Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (Hsam), where people can recall an abnormally large number of their life experiences in vivid and extraordinary detail. Christopher Lambert...

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has overtaken Bohemian Rhapsody as the highest ever grossing biopic. The film starring Cillian Murphy as the father of the atomic bomb, Robert J. Oppenheimer, has now grossed $912.7 million across the globe, taking it past Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody’s $910.8 million.

Oppenheimer has already broken box office records this summer. It is Universal Studio’s highest grossing R-rated film, and currently the third-highest grossing film of 2023 behind Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It is also Nolan’s third highest grossing film, after The Dark Knight...

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.

“Poor Things” looks set to be a major Oscar contender this year. It just won the Golden Lion at Venice and Emma Stone just took over the top spot on our Best Actress Oscar odds chart. Supporting players Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo look set to match an Academy Award record.

“Poor Things” tell the tale of Stone as a young woman brought back to life by a scientist in the Victorian era. Dafoe plays the eccentric scientist, complete with a peculiar Scottish accent and killer prosthetic makeup design, while Ruffalo hams it up as the scientist’s lawyer, donning a hilarious English accent and turning up the camp to 10. Both performances are now being touted as strong Oscar contenders in the Best Supporting Actor category, which could see Dafoe and Ruffalo earn their fifth and fourth nominations respectively.

Dafoe was first nominated in 1987 for Best Supporting Actor for “Platoon.

Frantic campers scavenge a park ranger’s rucksack inside his abandoned jeep. A shipwrecked sailor drags their waterproof emergency kit ashore. Apocalypse survivors raid a hardware depot after zombies chase civilization far away. Three different horror movie scenarios, all adding a holy grail item to whichever characters’ arsenal. Maybe loaded into a chamber, possibly as a roadside marker, but in any form, someone hoists an invaluable and iconic illumination tool: the almighty flare. Spark it, blast it, or blaze it for instantaneous cinematic ferocity and alarm.

As 2000s nu-metal rockers Chevelle once cautioned: “So lay down, The threat is real. When his sight, Goes red again.”

Maybe I should provide a bit of background at this point. On Twitter, I anointed myself Matt Donato: Champion of The Reds. What are “reds,” you ask? The thickest, richest, most bleeding-heart color filtration that saturates every inch of screen. Crimson cinematography splashes...

When Bo Goldman, the two-time Academy Award screenwriter of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Harold and Maude," passed away on July 25, 2023 at the age of 90, the world lost a master dramatist and a razor-sharp observer of human behavior. Hailed by his Hollywood peers as a "screenwriter's screenwriter," Goldman possessed an unerring ear for dialogue and a cliche-eschewing sense of narrative. Be it a wistful satire of the American dream or a bruisingly authentic depiction of divorce, his name on the poster guaranteed an honest, offbeat view of humanity.

And it almost never happened. Goldman was born in the midst of the Great Depression on September 10, 1932. His father owned a chain of department stores that had fallen on hard times, but that didn't stop the besieged patriarch from sending his son to the prestigious likes of Phillips Exeter and Princeton University. It was at the latter institution that Goldman discovered a love for theater,...

Nicolas Coster, the actor known for his roles on “Santa Barbara,” “The Bay” and “All the President’s Men,” has died. He was 89.

Coster died on June 26 in a hospital in Florida, according to his daughter Dinneen Coster.

Dinneen shared the news of her father’s death on Facebook. “Please remember him as a great artist. He was an actor’s actor!” she wrote. “I will always be inspired by him and know how lucky I am to have such a great father!!”

From 1984 to 1993, Coster starred on NBC’s soap opera “Santa Barbara” as Lionel Lockridge. He appeared in just under 600 episodes of the series before it ended. His “Santa Barbara” co-star A Martinez, who played Cruz Castillo in the series, responded on Tuesday to the news of Coster’s death, writing on Facebook, “It was an honor to work in a company with him, and I’ll always hold...

Nicolas Coster, the soap opera stalwart who starred on Another World, Santa Barbara and All My Children and appeared in such films as All the President’s Men, Reds and Stir Crazy, has died. He was 89.

Coster died Monday in a hospital in Florida, his daughter Dinneen Coster announced on Facebook.

“Please remember him as a great artist,” she wrote. “He was an actor’s actor! I will always be inspired by him and know how lucky I am to have such a great father!!

A familiar character actor who often portrayed officious types, Coster played chief of detectives J.E. Carson on The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo and later recurred as the millionaire father of Lisa Whelchel’s Blair Warner on another 1980’s NBC sitcom, The Facts of Life.

He appeared often on Broadway, and in his 1961 debut, he understudied for Lawrence Olivier as Henry II in Becket. Two decades later,...

Recently Gold Derby revisited each of Jennifer Lawrence‘s four Oscar nominations to coincide with the release of her new movie, “No Hard Feelings.” Today we’ll go more in depth on her road to winning Best Actress for “Silver Linings Playbook” back in 2012. That win made her the second youngest Best Actress (at age 22) in Oscar history, only behind Marlee Matlin, who was 21 when she prevailed for “Children of a Lesser God” in 1986.

SEERevisiting ‘Cleopatra’: The epic love story of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

In this film adaptation of Matthew Quick‘s 2008 novel of the same name, Lawrence plays Tiffany, a young widow who meets Pat Solitano Jr. (Bradley Cooper), a man with bipolar disorder, leading to an unlikely romance. The movie was written and directed by David O. Russell, who was coming off of receiving his first Oscar nom for helming 2010’s “The Fighter,” which won...

Miriam Margolyes’ acting career includes a BAFTA-nominated role in Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence,” “Reds,” “Mulan,” “Call the Midwife” and a lot more, but it’s her appearance as Professor Sprout in two “Harry Potter” movies that have made her a recognizable face across the world — not that Margolyes cares too much for the beloved franchise.

Speaking to Vogue UK for a new profile, Margolyes acknowledged that her two “Harry Potter” movies introduced her to an entire new generation of young people but said the franchise “doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to them.”

“For me, ‘Harry Potter’ wasn’t important,” Margolyes said. “I was very glad I got the part and I enjoyed being in it and meeting all the people, but it’s not Charles Dickens.”

However, Margolyes is grateful for the continued love from fans. She played Professor Sprout in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets...

Just in time for Succession‘s end, let’s look at method acting. The Criterion Channel are highlighting the controversial practice in a 27-film series centered on Brando, Newman, Nicholson, and many other’s embodiment of “an intensely personal, internalized, and naturalistic approach to performance.” That series makes mention of Marilyn Monroe, who gets her own, 11-title highlight––the iconic commingling with deeper cuts.

Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...

John Ratzenberger's acting career is riddled with the kind of trivia-fodder that would delight his "Cheers" character, Cliff Clavin. Aside from his sitcom stardom, the actor is best known as Pixar's good-luck charm (he appears in the animation studio's first 23 features) and, pre-"Cheers," as a master of the blink-and-miss-it walk-on role. Settle in to watch films as disparate as Richard Donner's "Superman," Kevin Connor's "Motel Hell," or Warren Beatty's "Reds," and you'll spy Ratzenberg at some point.

With his amusingly bushy mustache and awkward bearing, Ratzenberger was never going to be a leading man. He's a born character actor, and could've very well been a member of the "that guy" all-stars with Dick Miller, Stephen Tobolowsky, and James Rebhorn, had he not found television immortality as everyone's favorite know-some-of-it-all mail carrier. He's certainly not upset about how his career shook out, but his "Cheers...

Diane Keaton still doesn’t get why she was cast in “The Godfather”.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the actress was asked about her past statements about feeling miscast in Francis Ford Coppola’s classic gangster drama.

“Oh, are you kidding? Of course! I was terrified,” Keaton said. “I didn’t understand why me. I mean, I went up to the audition. I didn’t even really — I hadn’t read it. See, this is bad! But I needed a job, so I got up there. I’d been auditioning around for about a year, and then this happened like that. And I kept thinking, ‘Why me? Why would he cast me?’ I didn’t understand it. I still don’t, really.”

I‌n the film, which featured one of her early breakout roles, Keaton played Kay Corleone, the wife of soldier-turned-mafia boss Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino.

In talking with Diane Keaton, you get the sense she is most comfortable discussing anything — her beloved mother, her impressive co-stars, the photograph she pulled from a coffee table book about poor dental hygiene she found at a flea market — other than herself.

If she were to talk about herself, there would be a lot to cover, beginning with an early career filled with New York theater, the Godfather films and a prolific partnership with Woody Allen. She has since accumulated four Oscar nominations — she la-di-da-ed her way to a win for 1977’s Annie Hall — with the films Reds and Looking for Mr. Goodbar proving her dramatic muscle, while titles like 1996’s The First Wives Club and Something’s Gotta Give cemented her as one of Hollywood’s greatest onscreen comediennes. Her most recent career arc has seen her in such features as Book Club (grossing $104 million globally), surrounded by other...

Diane Keaton has been starring in films for five decades, taking on iconic role after role. In her almost 60 films, she has worked with actors like Woody Allen, Steve Martin, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, and Michael Douglas. The list goes on and on.

Keaton grew up in Highland Park, CA, and got the acting bug at age 6 when she saw her mother crowned Mrs. Highland Park. It was then that she knew she wanted to be a famous movie star.

Diane Keaton’s career Diane Keaton attends the Ralph Lauren SS23 Runway Show. I Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Keaton’s career began at age 19 when she moved to New York to study acting. Her first role was in Hair on Broadway. Soon after, she was working with Woody Allen on the stage and film versions of Play It Again, Sam. Her next role was in The Godfather.

Mira Sorvino found the Academy’s decision to leave her father, “Goodfellas” star Paul Sorvino,” out of Sunday night’s on-air In Memoriam tribute, “baffling beyond belief.”

The actress, who won a Best Supporting Oscar for the 1995 comedy “Mighty Aphrodite,” tweeted her disappointment Sunday night, “I for one am remembering Dad on this Oscars night.” On Monday, she addressed the omission more directly, tweeting, “It is baffling beyond belief that my beloved father and many other amazing brilliant departed actors were left out. The Oscars forgot about Paul Sorvino, but the rest of us never will!!”

Sorvino’s Oscar-nominated “Goodfellas” costar Ray Liotta, who died on May 26, 2022, was included in the broadcast tribute, but several other admired actors, including Anne Heche, Tom Sizemore, Philip Baker Hall and Cindy Williams, were not.

Also Read:

Paul Sorvino, ‘Goodfellas’ and ‘Law & Order’ Actor, Dies at 83

Paul’s widow, Dee Dee Sorvino, also blasted the Academy,...

In a rare occurrence, three of the four acting categories are still up in the air as we inch closer to Oscar Sunday. And depending on the permutation of the victorious quartet, we could have one of the oldest groups of winners ever.

Most of the top contenders in each category are over the age of 50. Ke Huy Quan, the closest thing to a lock in Best Supporting Actor, is 51. His “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-stars and fellow Screen Actors Guild Awards winners Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis are 60 and 64, respectively. Yeoh’s been neck and neck this whole time in Best Actress with Cate Blanchett (“TÁR”), who is 53. Curtis pulled off her supporting actress SAG upset over fellow 64-year-old veteran Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”). And in lead actor, SAG-AFTRA crowned 54-year-old Brendan Fraser for “The Whale.”

If any combination of these people prevail, it...

This year, all the Oscar-contending directors are nominated for original screenplay: the Daniels, Todd Field, Martin McDonagh, Ruben Östlund and Steven Spielberg (writing with Tony Kushner).

This is the first time it’s happened in AMPAS history.

The only year that came close was 2017, when all five helmers had written or co-written their scripts, though they didn’t all get writing noms.

So here’s Film History 101.

In Hollywood lore, Preston Sturges is often credited as the first scribe to become a hyphenate, as writer-director of the 1940 “The Great McGinty.” But as with all Hollywood “facts,” there is only an element of truth here.

In the next few years, he was joined by some heavyweights: Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane”) and John Huston (“The Maltese Falcon”) in 1941; Leo McCarey (co-writer of “Going My Way”); Billy Wilder (writing with Raymond Chandler) for “Double Indemnity” in 1944; and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (“Dragonwyck”), 1946.

However, a writer-director wasn’t an innovation.

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.

Hugh Hudson, director of the Oscar-winning classic "Chariots of Fire," has passed away at the age of 86. According to a statement released by his family, Hudson "died at Charing Cross hospital on 10 February after a short illness. He is survived by his wife, Maryam, his son, Thomas, and his first wife, Sue."

Hudson's fact-based drama about British runners Harold Abrahams (Ben Cross) and Eric Liddell (Ian Charleston) was a surprise critical and commercial smash in 1981, earning four Academy Awards (including Best Picture) and out-grossing splashy studio releases like "For Your Eyes Only" and "Clash of the Titans." The film became a pop cultural phenomenon due in part to Vangelis' main theme, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week in 1982 and inspired parodies in films like "Mr. Mom" and "National Lampoon's Vacation." But despite its staid period setting and deliberately paced narrative, Hudson's movie touched the hearts of moviegoers all...

Hugh Hudson, the Oscar-nominated director of the classic British film “Chariots of Fire,” has died. He was 86.

Hudson died after battling a short illness, according to The Guardian, which first reported the news Friday.

“Hugh Hudson, 86, beloved husband and father, died at Charing Cross hospital on 10 February after a short illness. He is survived by his wife Maryam, his son Thomas and his first wife Sue,” Hudson’s family said in a statement.

Also Read:

Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2022 (Photos)

Hudson got his start in documentaries, and “Chariots of Fire” was technically his first narrative feature film, which would go on to win the Oscar for Best Picture and become one of the most celebrated British films ever made. Although nominated for best director, Hudson would lose to Warren Beatty, who won for “Reds.”

“Chariots of Fire” was nominated for seven Oscars and would end up collecting four, alongside three Bafta statuettes.

Hugh Hudson, who came from the worlds of documentaries and advertising to make his feature directing debut on the stirring Oscar best picture winner Chariots of Fire, one of the most admired British films ever made, has died. He was 86.

Hudson died Friday at Charing Cross hospital in London after a short illness, his family told The Guardian newspaper.

Hudson helmed just seven features during his career. After earning an Oscar nomination for his 1981 masterpiece, he followed with the highly regarded Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). Starring Christopher Lambert, it was the first Tarzan feature to receive an Oscar nom (it landed three).

Up next for Hudson, however, was Revolution (1985), which starred Al Pacino as a fur trapper thrust into the American Revolutionary War. Made for a reported 28 million, it was a major bust, grossing just 350,000 in the U.S. Critics hammered Pacino, who left acting for about four years,...

When it comes to winning an Oscar, the key is usually a good narrative.

The young upstart bursting onto the scene with a sparkling debut performance. The faded star staging an unlikely comeback. The hell-bent Method actor transforming themselves completely in service of their craft.

While the decision of who wins is often down to the arbitrary notion of “momentum” and whoever ran the most effusive behind-the-scenes campaign, many talented actors have often found themselves falling just short – losing out to a more romantic narrative.

Sometimes, actors have accrued a whole handful of Oscar nominations without ever once winning.

For every serial winner like Daniel Day-Lewis or Frances McDormand, there’s a Willem Dafoe or Glenn Close: great actors who haven’t yet been given their due by the Academy.

Here’s a breakdown of all the living actors who have been nominated multiple times – but have never taken home an award.

When it comes to winning an Oscar, the key is usually a good narrative.

The young upstart bursting onto the scene with a sparkling debut performance. The faded star staging an unlikely comeback. The hell-bent Method actor transforming themselves completely in service of their craft.

While the decision of who wins is often down to the arbitrary notion of “momentum” and whoever ran the most effusive behind-the-scenes campaign, many talented actors have often found themselves falling just short – losing out to a more romantic narrative.

Sometimes, actors have accrued a whole handful of Oscar nominations without ever once winning.

For every serial winner like Daniel Day-Lewis or Frances McDormand, there’s a Willem Dafoe or Glenn Close: great actors who haven’t yet been given their due by the Academy.

Here’s a breakdown of all the living actors who have been nominated multiple times – but have never taken home an award.

Melinda Dillon, who received supporting Oscar nominations for her turns in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Absence of Malice and portrayed the doting mom in the holiday perennial A Christmas Story, died Jan. 9, her family announced. She was 83.

Right out of the gate, Dillon earned a Tony nomination and Theatre World award in 1963 for her debut performance on Broadway as the childlike wife Honey in the original production of Edward Albee‘s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Later, the Arkansas native played two characters opposite David Carradine — Woody Guthrie’s first wife, Mary, and a dark-haired folk singer named Memphis Sue — in the biopic Bound for Glory (1976), directed by Hal Ashby; was a lesbian hockey wife in George Roy Hill’s Slap Shot (1977); and portrayed John Lithgow’s wife in the family film Harry and the Hendersons (1987).

Her big-screen résumé also included Norman Jewison’s F.I.S.T. (1978), as...

Two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is the actor you want to receive the 2023 SAG life achievement award. He had 26.77 of the votes in our recent poll asking which male actor should have the honor from the Screen Actors Guild. Hanks was ahead of Anthony Hopkins at 11.19 and then a tie between Robert Duvall and Dustin Hoffman at 9.13.

We also created a separate poll recently for actresses, which had Glenn Close winning and Meryl Streep in second place. All actors and actresses in each poll have two things in common with typical decisions by this committee: at least 65 years old with a history of charitable and/or humanitarian works.

See SAG Life Achievement award: Full gallery of recipients since 1995

The 2022 recipient of the honor was Dame Helen Mirren. There was no award given in 2021, but it was three men in a row before then. The following living people have already received...