The new movie Star Trek: Section 31 takes its heroes deep outside of Federation space. But in the Star Trek universe, you can’t go anywhere without hearing the word, “KHAN!” No one in Section 31 actually names Khan Noonien Singh, but the 20th century warlord’s presence hangs over one of the main characters. The black ops team is led by Alok (Omari Hardwick), a no-nonsense tough guy tasked with holding together the rag-tag band. We don’t know how Alok holds his own against the outrageous threats they face, at least not until late in the film, when he reveals his…

This article contains Emilia Pérez spoilers. The first time I saw Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, I knew nothing going in other than who was in the cast and that it was a musical set in Mexico. Even the revelation that Karla Sofía Gascón would be introduced as a Mexican drug cartel leader who would simultaneously bribe and threaten Zoe Saldaña into helping her gender transition was a surprise. I imagine many such folks who discovered the film on the festival circuit last summer or in early fall—mine was at the New York Film Festival—had similar reactions to a movie which…

From his very first movie The Witch, Robert Eggers taught us a simple but important equation: Robert Eggers + Monster + Archaic Spelling Conventions = Good Movie. So while we’ve loved The Lighthouse, The Northman, and Nosferatu, we’re even more excited about his announced next project: Werwulf. More than just a stylistic flourish, the title of Eggers’ latest, rooted in the Old English spelling of “werewolf,” indicates the approach he’ll likely take. As when he borrowed from Puritan sermons, court documents, and journals for The Witch, and the ur-Hamlet poem with Norse roots in The Northman, Eggers will probably look…

Two years after SXSW updated the name of its film festival to the “SXSW Film & TV Festival,” the winds of change are on full display in Austin. Ever a forward-looking fest—with SXSW long being the omnibus intersection of where film, music, tech, gaming, and more meet—this fest seems to perpetually keep one eye on the future. Which might explain why 2025 will see the film/TV side’s big opening project be not a motion picture, but the premiere of an eagerly anticipated new television series on Apple TV+. The Studio, an ambitious comedy show from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg,…

The Oscar nominations are at last here. After painful and necessary delays due to the wildfires in California, we now know who the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have deemed to be the best films of 2025. All 10 of them. It’s still a bit surreal after months of speculation and prognostication that the envelope is in for the 10 films nominated for Oscar’s shiniest prize. There have been snubs and surprises along the way, but below we have gathered all chosen few for your perusal. If you need a chance to catch up on some of them,…

Each and every year’s Oscars lineup brings its fair share of snubs and surprises, twists and turns. Still, it’s fair to say the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2025 was filled with some stunners, including Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here shocking many prognosticators when it ended up in both the Best Picture and Best Actress races. Indeed, the Brazilian film that is also nominated for Best International Feature saw Fernada Torres get into the Best Actress category (likely at the expense of Nicole Kidman or Angelina Jolie) while the film ended up on the shortlist for the…

Anyone worried that Star Trek: Section 31 would completely undermine the central ethos of Star Trek as a franchise has those fears confirmed within the first 10 minutes of the movie. Section 31 opens in the Mirror Universe, where we see a teenaged Phillipa Georgiou (portrayed here by Miku Martineau) give an arch, sub-Game of Thrones monologue before committing an atrocity, the final step in securing her role as Terran Emperor. The scenes of course lack any of the hope and optimism that define Trek, the belief in fundamental good of collaboration and understanding that the Mirror Universe (and Section…

It’s fair to say that Netflix had pretty high expectations for itself in the fourth and final financial quarter of 2024. Bolstered by the December 26 premiere of Squid Game season 2, the livestream double whammy of two NFL Christmas Day games and the Jake Paul/Mike Tyson fight, and the impending arrival of WWE Raw in January 2025, the streamer was expected to add around 9 million new paid subscribers during the observed October-December timeframe. Still, even that ambitious estimate fell well short of the reality of Netflix’s success to close out the year. In reporting its 2024 Q4 earnings…

“Nothing is of its own explanation,” Adrien Brody’s Lázló Tóth muses in The Brutalist when asked why he became an architect. It’s a cryptic comment, but Tóth gives a slightly fuller context when he adds, “Is there a better description of a cube than that of its construction? There was a war on, and yet it is my understanding that many of [my buildings] remain there, still in the city… my buildings were devised to endure such erosion.” It is safe to say director and co-writer Brady Corbet feels some affinity with Tóth given the monumental nature of The Brutalist,…

“And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.” So finished the party to end all parties in “The Masque of the Red Death,” one of Edgar Allan Poe’s…

Edward Lemuel is a kind, timid man. Or so it seems. For the first act of the 2024 black comedy, A Different Man, Edward tries his best to avoid attention. He sheepishly slides past the couch blocking his apartment door as new neighbor, the aspiring playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve) moves in. He moves through the city with his body bent forward and his arms crossed in front of him, as if shielding himself from some unseen attack. Even when he tries out for various acting gigs, he falls back and gets embarrassed, a quality that only earns him parts in…

While 2025 might be a new year, it will have plenty of familiar names. Reboots and remakes will fill the screen, with filmmakers taking a different look at properties and stories told before. That might sound dire. But before you start complaining about Hollywood’s lack of ideas, just take a look at this list. Sure, there are a few obvious plays for IP dollars, but for the most part, the 2025 reboot and remake slate is full of exciting updates to Superman and the Fantastic Four, as well as compelling updates to classic Universal monsters. The names might be familiar,…

When we first saw Cameron Diaz’s film debut in The Mask, audiences had a response not unlike that of Jim Carrey’s green-skinned protagonist. Okay, maybe we weren’t quite so aroused, but our eyes did practically pop out of our sockets. And with good reason. After all, Diaz is a tall, striking blonde who looked every bit like the model turned actress she was. Given her high profile beginning, it might sound weird to describe any Cameron Diaz performance as overlooked. Not only does Diaz fit well within traditional leading lady roles, but she has a knack for comic timing and…

2025 has barely begun but it already feels like a lot. Climate change-fueled wildfires continue to ravage Los Angeles and parts of Southern California while unease grips the news. A moment of transition on at least one side of the pond for our U.S. readers breeds apprehension, and the rest of the year can look foreboding if you pay attention to the headlines. It’s times like these where it’s nice to have a comforting movie, a piece of escapism, that can lift a mood and maybe rally your outlook for the days and months ahead. Here are some suggestions we…

Last September, well before Halloween and a full four months out from Leigh Whannell’s reimagining of a Universal Monsters classic, The Wolf Man, we got our first look at Whannell and Blumhouse Productions’ new take on the famous werewolf. Supposedly. While a theme park performer visibly stood in front of a poster for this January’s Wolf Man with a goofy-looking latex mask on—presumably it would seem scarier in the dark at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights for where it was intended —it obviously wasn’t the real deal Whannell and makeup artist Arjen Tuiten (Pan’s Labyrinth) designed for the finished film.…

The idea of werewolves has existed since long before movies came along. The concept goes back to antiquity with ancient Greek historian Herodotus writing in the fifth century B.C. about a colony where settlers were transformed into wolves for several nights of the year; several centuries later the story of Greek King Lycaon turning into a wolf was passed down, becoming the root for the still-used psychological diagnosis of “lycanthropy;” and in the Middle Ages philosopher-saint Augustine of Hippo wrote as a matter of fact about how witches could cast spells that turned men into wolves. So yeah, werewolves have…

Variety confirmed Thursday that legendary writer-director David Lynch has passed away at the age of 78. The news was first shared by Lynch’s family via this Facebook post: “It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’ It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.” “Keep…

The words Back in Action are as much a promise as they are a title. After all, anyone who considers themselves a fan of Jamie Foxx or Cameron Diaz—and Netflix’s algorithm clearly thinks there are a lot of us out there—will know they’ve been away from screens for serious reasons. It’s been almost two years since Jamie Foxx experienced a stroke that left him hospitalized and initially unable to walk. So seeing him dance, kick, and float across soundstages again is the kind of rare catharsis that even AI analytics can never genuinely quantify. While Diaz’s own reasons for stepping…

Wolf Man begins with a father and son on a hunting trip in which the latter decides to share with his boy some advice about the way of the world. “Dying isn’t hard. It’s the easiest thing in the world,” the dad (Ben Prendergast) warns his son Blake (Zac Chandler). “At every minute it’s closing up behind you.” Given the intense warning, and the cold distance in papa’s eyes, it’s no surprise that when we again meet the adult Blake (Christopher Abbott) 30 years later, he’s living not in the Oregon wilderness of his father, but in San Fransisco. Nor…

The Flash in many ways was an appropriate end to the DC Extended Universe. Yes, the film also included a post-credits scene which set up the obligatory and already forgotten Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, but that underwater superhero movie arrived in theaters like a sunken afterthought. Meanwhile The Flash, directed with a lot of pep and energy by filmmaker Andy Muschietti, came roaring out and swinging for the fences. With a galaxy-brained premise that spent close to a decade in production, The Flash saw Ezra Miller’s super-speedster cause the entire DC universe to implode after he went back in…