Surprise cameo appearances have become the bread and butter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU has been chock-full of cameos since the franchise’s inception, from introducing major players in post-credits scenes to featuring A-list celebrities in hilarious bit parts. So today we are counting down the 25 best cameos the mega-franchise has to offer.  Before we begin, it’s essential to specify precisely what constitutes a cameo. For the sake of our list, cameos are brief appearances from a notable character or actor which do not extend for longer than a couple of scenes. Some surprise reveals, such as Tobey…

Both the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance have called a few different planets and moons home over the course of Star Wars’ history, and yet Yavin 4 continues to be the best of them all. Finding somewhere safe outside the purview of a fascistic government can’t be an easy task, but Rebels somehow keep finding their way to the jungle moon of the gas giant Yavin Prime. We first see this moon in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as the home base of the Rebel Alliance and again in Rogue One. Though we’ve yet to see how or…

By this point, the interstellar hunters known as Yautja have appeared in several movies, comics, and video games. Yet, each Predator movie follows the same basic structure: we’re introduced to human protagonists, we see them get killed by a mysterious force, and it’s not until late in the film that we finally see the ugly motherf—-r in its full glory. Not so for upcoming new entry Predator: Badlands, which is seemingly changing up the usual formula. This film puts the Predator “front and center, leading the charge,” according to director Dan Trachtenberg in an interview with Empire. “He’s still badass,…

This article contains Deadpool & Wolverine spoilers. As is typical of the one they call the Daywalker, Blade is unimpressed. In the front seats of an abused and debased Honda Odyssey, two of his superpowered colleagues are jabbering about variants, different versions of the same characters, and all those other multiversal nonsense things that’s made superhero movies a chore in the 2020s. “That’s Punisher’s AT4,” Jennifer Garner’s Elektra says about the glorified rocket launcher resting snugly in Wesley Snipes’ arms. “Which Punisher?” quips Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, “there’s been like five of them?” That is when Snipes gets the line of…

When most people think of Mission: Impossible III, two things leap to mind. First, people remember Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s tremendous performance as villain Owen Davian. Second, people ask, “What was the deal with the Rabbit’s Foot?” While the Entity, the self-aware AI villain of the upcoming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, probably won’t prompt any comparisons to Davian, the Rabbit’s Foot may come up again. The first trailer for The Final Reckoning features plenty of images one would expect from this well-established franchise. Tom Cruise runs. Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames look on with awe. Tom Cruise jumps. Side…

It’s no secret that the film side of Star Wars has really struggled to get off the ground again following the end of the Sequel Trilogy. Countless Star Wars movie projects have been announced in the last five years, but The Mandalorian & Grogu is the only film that’s actually completed production since The Rise of Skywalker. A trilogy of films said to be helmed by The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson was announced and then put on hold indefinitely; new movies to be developed by Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were shelved; Patty Jenkins’s exciting…

The James Bond franchise is one of the oldest and most respected in movie history—and it currently sits at a crossroads. It’s been several years since Daniel Craig hung up his Walther PPK and stepped away from the role in No Time to Die, the end of an era on the road to a new one. Since then, there’s been a lot discussion about who or what Bond will be next, even as producers Barbara Broccoli and her step-brother Michael G. Wilson keep things close to the chest. Speaking with The Independent at an event honoring the late Albert “Cubby”…

This post contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine. He might arrive spinning his cards, accompanied by triumphant music and a slow-mo stride, but make no mistake: Gambit is introduced as a joke in Deadpool & Wolverine. Gambit’s a joke on a plot level, as he alone represents one-quarter of the resistance army that the titular heroes hoped would be much larger; he’s also a deep cut in-joke, even by Deadpool standards, because he’s played by Channing Tatum, who tried for years to get a Gambit solo film out of development hell; and he’s a comic book nerd joke, decked out…

By the end of 1994, two filmmakers pointed to the future of cinema. One was Quentin Tarantino, whose sophomore feature Pulp Fiction made high-art out of lowbrow exploitation. The other was Kevin Smith, who famously funded his debut Clerks entirely on a credit card. With its vulgar dialogue and focus on the working class of the service industry, Clerks announced Smith as an exciting new talent, one who could capture the voice of a generation—Generation X, in particular. Decades later, both Tarantino and Smith continue to work in the industry. But while at least some critics and audiences greet each…

Midway through the latest trailer for Thunderbolts*, CIA chief Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (aka Julia Louis-Dreyfus for the civilians) welcomes the titular team into her headquarters. “The place wasn’t cheap, but it’s got good optics,” she quips. She’s not kidding. We first saw that place in 2012’s The Avengers, a movie that’s filled with hero shots. In the final one, which is set to Alan Silvestri’s rousing theme, we see Stark Tower, a monument to Tony’s hubris and individualism, rechristened Avengers Tower, a symbol of what can happen when different personalities come together for the greater good. And even though…

There’s a lot to be excited for with the return of Andor next year. This second and final season is set to bridge the gap between the Cassian (Diego Luna) we saw in season 1 and the Cassian we see in Rogue One. This means that the potential for familiar characters to appear is has increased, including fan-favorite K-2SO (Alan Tudyk). Thanks to a trailer shown to audience members at D23 in Anaheim, we already knew that our favorite sassy droid was going to show up this season, but that doesn’t make his appearance in a recent teaser any less…

This article contains spoilers for The Penguin and The Batman. Let’s consider two different ways of meeting the Batman. In 1989, Batman made his onscreen debut by first dropping as a shadow in the background, behind two crooks counting their ill-gotten booty. When he finally appears in full, the Caped Crusader grabs the cowardly and superstitious baddie and stares into his face. “I’m Batman,” he growls. In 2022, Batman makes a slower, more drawn-out appearance. Voiceover from Bruce Wayne assures us that Batman is present and watching, waiting to make his move. He chooses to intercede in a group of…

Mr. Blue is back in the latest trailer for Captain America: Brave New World, doing what he does best. What? You don’t remember Mr. Blue? One of the first antagonists in the MCU? You see him all over the Brave New World trailer, talking on the phone from a shadowy alleyway and chiding Anthony Mackie‘s Sam Wilson for simply following orders as the new Captain America. Okay, maybe you recognize that guy as the great character actor Tim Blake Nelson, who plays Hulk villain the Leader in Brave New World. But you might also recall that Nelson first played Sterns…

The Terminator, which turns 40 years old this year, is one of the seminal science fiction/action films of the 1980s, spawning a franchise that has included five additional movies, two TV shows, and other associated media. Written and directed by James Cameron, it starred Arnold Schwarzenegger in his breakout performance as the T-800, a cyborg sent back to our time by the AI defense system controlling the Earth in the future, so as to exterminate the mother of a yet-to-be-born human resistance leader. Initially a sleeper hit with all the makings of a cult classic, The Terminator is now recognized…

If you thought the Colosseum sands could soak up blood, wait until you see them covered in water. Atop a glassy shimmer of blue, various slaves, gladiators, and would-be champions make splashes of vibrant crimson and muddy rouge every time a clipped arrow sends them tumbling into the deep. But calm waters, these are not. Silent leviathans lay in wait, ready to collect felled warriors in their mouths like so much chum in a Steven Spielberg movie. Albeit even that comparison is not quite right; whereas the aquatic eating habits of monsters was the centerpiece of Jaws, such carnage is…

This article contains spoilers for The Penguin episode 8 and The Batman. In the final moments of The Batman, the young Dark Knight turns his bike away from Catwoman and back toward Gotham City, burdened by the work yet to be done. Although Batman never appears in The Penguin, the series further developed the world created by director Matt Reeves by following the unlikely rise of one Oz Cobb, derisively known as the Penguin. With Carmine Falcone out of the way, exposed as a rat by the Riddler and then murdered, Oz saw a chance to claim power for himself.…

It sometimes feels like most of the 80 million copies of The Da Vinci Code that have reportedly been sold since the novel’s 2003 release ended up in second-hand bookshops or on the sidewalk next to a sign that says “Free Books.” One of the biggest literary sensations ever now feels like a photo of that haircut you had in high school. It’s the kind of thing that can trigger vague memories of a different era while making you ask “what was I thinking?”  Yet the acclaim for 2004’s National Treasure, one of the earliest notable works that emulated The…

Debating about the best and worst Star Trek moments is a geek pastime that will endure until our sun grows cold or to the point where human beings have simply entered into a parallel universe in which Star Trek is real. But the extremes of best and worst lists sometimes exclude the more interesting truth about Star Trek stories; the moments that are just fine. Neither overtly bad nor exceedingly good, the majority of Trek, when you include most of the films, is merely okay. And perhaps the most okay-est of the okay Star Trek movies is the 1994 film…

No matter how you feel about the prequel series, there’s no denying the impact they’ve had on the Star Wars universe at large. The story of Anakin Skywalker and his master Obi-Wan Kenobi that we only briefly hear about in the original trilogy is finally brought to life in the three George Lucas-penned films. But it turns out that how this story began in The Phantom Menace was almost entirely different. Pretty much all Star Wars fans are familiar with how that movie plays out. A young Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) are…

This article contains Heretic spoilers. Hugh Grant is the ultimate pompous mansplainer in Heretic, an unusual philosophical horror from writer/directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods. Young Mormon women Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Sister Paxton (Chloe East) visit the home of Mr. Reed (Grant) who has expressed an interest in learning more about the religion. It’s a stormy day and Reed’s wife, he explains, is just inside the kitchen making a blueberry pie. So the women reluctantly enter the house to discuss the Book of Mormon. But all, of course, is not what it seems. Reed’s theological bullying intensifies and…