Best movies of all time

The former Bond actor has given his seal of approval to 007 hopeful Callum Turner, who is rumoured to be one of the frontrunners for the coveted role. An official announcement regarding the identity of the next Bond is expected to drop before the end of the year.

A witty creature feature set in a multi-occupancy building in Los Angeles that takes aim at unscrupulous landlords and finance bros This arachnid-themed horror is fairly traditional in terms of its structure, core monster threat and scares-to-laughs ratio, but there are a few winningly modern touches. For starters, there is a very contemporary anticapitalist undertow: it all takes place in a single multi-occupancy building (supposedly in Los Angeles, though the whole film was filmed in Portugal) owned by a slimy landlord (William Miller), who rails against the city’s “socialist” local council making it harder for him to rip off his tenants. And the tenants range across the spectrum of income levels and careers, in a way which is directly correlated to how sympathetic they are and therefore how likely to get spider-bit. So you shouldn’t get too attached any of the characters who work in finance, are “influencers”, or in any way act high and mighty towards the building’s long suffering supervisor Serena (Matilda Lutz), a tomboy-femme girl in shorts and biker boots who is also an aspiring musician. Serena is the one who finds the first victim, a UCLA professor in arachnology who is killed by an exotic spider which grows to extra-large proportions, from a colony ruled by a super-sized queen that appears semi-sentient. Continue reading...

Bookmakers’ odds have shortened to 8/13 for the British actor, seen sipping martinis with his wife Dua Lipa at the weekend Ten days after final screentests for the most coveted role in British cinema, one actor has emerged as a strong favourite to don the 007 tux for Denis Villeneuve’s forthcoming film. The bookmaker William Hill has cut the odds of Callum Turner being named as the next James Bond from 3/1 to 8/13, with previous favourite Jack Lowden now at 2/1. Josh O’Connor, who also auditioned recently, is now at 9/2, with Richard Madden, Robert Pattinson and Joe Alwyn at 16/1. Continue reading...

Based on the ancient classical poem about Rama, the avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, this three-hour blockbuster is highly enjoyable Here is a thoroughly engaging, rousing and spectacular Indian epic melodrama from director Nitesh Tiwari, with music by Hans Zimmer and AR Rahman, based on the ancient classical poem about Rama, the avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu. It has often been adapted for live-action and animated movies in the past, though surely not on this scale, the current three-hour blockbuster being only the first half. (There are no musical numbers though.) The idea of aristocrats submitting stoically and yet playfully to exile in the forest has something Shakespearean about it, and if you are suffering from Homer-withdrawal after Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, a story about the noble Prince Rama finally vowing to wage war on a distant city where his wife has been abducted might just fit the bill. Ranbir Kapoor plays the mythical Rama, a noble warrior and statesman who has been brought into being in the city state of Ayodhya as a bodily representative of Vishnu, and from the first his sense of destiny is overwhelming. But what exactly is that destiny? In broad terms, his fate is to face off with Ravana (Naveen “Yash” Kumar), king of far-off Lanka, a figure whose former slave status once triggered in him such a cosmically intense prayer for justice that Lord Brahma offered him the superpower of athletic strength and indifference to pain. Continue reading...

Garfield’s chilling performance as the OpenAI CEO in the film Artificial captures the human fallibility at the helm of artificial intelligence. What comes next scares Garfield too.

The cult Italian film-maker began as an assistant to Roberto Rossellini but moved into sex films, believing ‘eroticism to be a fundamental key to human expression’ Italian film director Tinto Brass, who was once hailed as the “Antonioni of the 70s” but came to be better known for bringing Italian erotic cinema to a wider audience with films such as Caligula and Salon Kitty, has died aged 93. His wife Caterina Varzi and children Bonifacio and Beatrice Brass announced the news of the director’s death to Italian press agency Ansa on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Since 1954, the King of the Kaiju has been terrorizing the city of Tokyo. But it wasn't until the two most recent installments, Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla Minus Zero, that the franchise became prestige fare.

Denis Villeneuve’s first (and probably best) foray into science fiction, Arrival, was released 10 years ago this month. It has hardly aged and is as staggering as it ever was, says film columnist Bethan Ackerley

When Kinnear was 10, his beloved father Roy died in an on-set accident. This affected how he now approaches his work as an actor, and also his understanding of life’s most important questions At first glance, Rory Kinnear is Mr Normal. Bald head, nice face, wholly unremarkable. As an actor, he’s not one for flashy tricks – no dramatic weight loss or gain, rarely disguising himself with prosthetics or CGI. Yet, somehow, whatever role Kinnear plays, he’s totally different. So here I am in his dressing room at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London, face to face with the man I’ve just seen on stage, and whose films and TV shows I’ve pored over for the past week, failing to recognise him. For starters, at 6ft, he’s taller than he should be. And more hench. And, actually, hotter. Continue reading...

A little-known Auschwitz block where hundreds of Jewish women were used as test subjects is now a film by Berlin producer Alice Brauner, who tells Euronews of tearful shoots and renewed anger.

Heartfelt real-life drama follows the late activist whose groundbreaking struggle helped build a rainbow alliance with gay action groups and the Black Panthers The remarkable story of the late US disability rights campaigner and wheelchair user Judy Heumann – pronounced “human” – is the subject of this heartfelt if Hollywoodised story from director and co-writer Sian Heder, based on Heumann’s own 2020 memoir of the same title. In the lead is British actor Ruth Madeley, who has spina bifida and is herself a disability rights activist; she gives a forthright, smart, sympathetic performance. Heumann’s finest hour was to get the federal government to sign into law Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, whose accessibility provisions had been resisted by Nixon, Ford and then Carter. In 1977, Heumann led a guerrilla sit-in occupation of the San Francisco Health, Education and Welfare offices, her group being a rainbow alliance including gay action groups and the Black Panthers. Secretary of State for Health Joseph Califano sensationally conceded and signed the bill that he and the political establishment had obstructed for years. He is played by Mark Ruffalo, whose nice-guy persona and one-note performance of exasperated detachment does however rather obscure the fact that in real life, Califano at first personally authorised moves to starve the protesters out. In the movie, this grim political decision is not explicitly dramatised. Continue reading...

Apocryphal plans to send an arousing morale booster to troops battling the Nazis make scant sense, and nor does the resulting movie Some potentially interesting ideas here and a good cast … but the whole thing disintegrates into a very weird and ill-judged mess. It looks as if it might be a saucy romp, but is in fact doomily serious, like a stilted, stricken stage play. Sexual violence, PTSD and misogyny are among the issues that the film fails to address convincingly. Writer-director Richard Hawkins (who scripted Paul Greengrass’s The Theory of Flight) imagines that during the second world war the British government commissioned porn films to be shown to troops as a morale-boost. This is supposedly based on an “urban myth” whose existence does not appear to be evident other than in online material relating to this film – although Britain’s Political Warfare Executive (PWE) is known to have dropped pornographic leaflets over Germany to damage enemy morale, crudely depicting wives cheating on absent soldier husbands, etc. Continue reading...

Sony is enjoying a sharp profit spike in its latest quarterly financials, largely driven by its PlayStation business and the blockbuster success of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. According to the company's September earnings, Sony's net profits climbed to 449.60 billion yen (about $2.84 billion) for the three months ended September - a 44 percent increase […]

Portraying the humour, passion and grit that took the actor from bit parts to Oscar glory, this making-of tale is even more mythic than the original movie For fun, excitement and the transcendental thrill of success, there’s nothing to touch this very enjoyable drama about the making of Sylvester Stallone’s Oscar-winning 1976 boxing movie, Rocky. It’s a movie of duplicates and surfaces and heartfelt imitations. Perhaps not very profound but, as Oscar Wilde’s Lord Henry Wotton says, it is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. It is the story of the struggling young Italian-American unknown who’d had some minor acting jobs – including softcore pornography – but wrote a thumpingly good screenplay inspired by the underdog white boxer Chuck Wepner, who briefly knocked Ali down in 1975. With tremendous self-belief, Stallone insisted he play the lead role himself, holding out against vast cash offers to just take the writing credit and let an established star into the ring. Continue reading...

In 2015, two film-makers first met 11-year-old refugee Israa, forced to abandon Aleppo for a new life in Europe, along with her parents and siblings. None of them imagined what would come next In 2015, an 11-year-old Syrian girl called Israa matter-of-factly explained how her family would survive if their dinghy sank crossing the sea from Turkey to Greece. Her father would grab her disabled sister; her mother would look after the baby. “And I,” said Israa, a huge smile lighting her face, “I know how to rescue myself.” Wife-and-husband documentary-makers Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes met Israa while filming a BBC series, Exodus, about refugees trying to reach Europe. Their plan was to follow Israa and her family on their hazardous journey to Germany. But after Israa reached safety, the pair kept filming. Ten years in the making, their documentary, One in a Million, is extraordinary - with echoes of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and the Up! series. We watch Israa grow up in front of our eyes, from a sunny-natured 11-year-old to a woman, married with a baby of her own. Continue reading...

An Auschwitz block where hundreds of Jewish women were used as test subjects: few know this dark chapter. Berlin-based Alice Brauner has now filmed it and tells Euronews of shoots where all wept and of a new anger.

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey put him back at the apex of the A-list, but the 56-year-old actor still remembers when the phone stopped ringing in the 2000s. “There are no sure things, man,” he says.

The actor answers your questions about trapeze lessons, Bond villain ambitions and Michael Caine’s top tips You looked as if you had such a good time on Celebrity Traitors last year – you had them hanging on your every word. What was it like? Who have you kept in touch with? breezehillpete They absolutely didn’t hang on my every word. I’m fascinated to watch it now, because at a distance, I can see how people follow each other. That herd mentality is very evident at the round table, but I always went in a different direction and people didn’t follow me. Then, of course, I accused Alan [Carr] at the end: “I think you are one, aren’t you?”, so I had to go the next day. I didn’t quite know what I was letting myself in for, but I had a great time. Kate [Garraway] and I had to go on that Uncloaked thing after. She turned to me and she said: “Oh, but Celia, we’re now all one big happy family, aren’t we?” I said: “Well, frankly, I don’t want to see any of them ever again in the whole of my life,” and everybody laughed. But truthfully, we haven’t really run into each other since. Nevertheless, I think I was with a marvellous company, and I liked them all. Continue reading...

Gong simmers with rage, loneliness and humiliation as the ‘fourth mistress’ navigating the intimate political savagery of her husband’s compound in Zhang Yimou’s 1991 thriller Revisiting Zhang Yimou’s grippingly addictive psychological drama from 1991, adapted from a novella by Su Tong, is a reminder of what a great impact this movie made on western audiences. They responded to its arguably westernised tale of a young woman’s desperate loneliness in a sinister environment that resembles something by Charlotte Brontë or Daphne du Maurier. Like Jung Chang’s memoir Wild Swans from the same year, Raise the Red Lantern opened our eyes to 20th-century China’s secret theatre of cruelty and misogyny; elaborate domestic rituals of submission and servitude coexisted with infinitely subtle plotting, resentful manoeuvring and covert denunciation, habits of thought that could so easily be absorbed into Maoism. Gong Li gives one of the great performances of the 1990s as Songlian, a beautiful, intelligent young woman in 1920s China who is forced to abandon her university studies after just six months because her father has died and there is no longer money for the fees. In the unforgettable opening scene, which unfolds with a single unbroken shot of Gong’s pale face, incandescent with shock and pain, Songlian announces to her callous stepmother (who remains off camera) that she is ready to accept marriage – and then her eyes brim with tears. Her suppressed rage, loneliness and humiliation are to simmer below the surface for the rest of the film. Continue reading...

Actor who provided the voice for the ‘tin dog’ K9 in the BBC’s Doctor Who and also worked on ITV’s Beadle’s About John Leeson, who has died aged 83, was a genial character actor who provided the voice of the much-loved robotic sidekick K9 in the popular BBC TV series Doctor Who. Originally conceived to appear in just one story, The Invisible Enemy, in 1977, K9 was a mobile, dog-shaped computer who produced ticker-tape information from his mouth and had a laser gun in his nose. With a pinched voice, clipped delivery and a tendency towards pedantry, he served as both encyclopedia and guard dog, and was deemed successful enough a creation to retain as a regular character. K9 was the perfect foil for Tom Baker’s spiky, obtuse Time Lord: Leeson likened the character to King Lear’s fool – a wise and funny factotum licensed to call out his master’s faults and prick his pomposity. Off-screen Baker thought highly of Leeson, and felt that the intelligent, unassuming and witty actor was more interesting that the oft-malfunctioning K9 prop, which caused many delays on the studio floor. Leeson also won the appreciation of his colleagues by attending rehearsals and gamely performing on all fours. Continue reading...

Glamorous star of 1960s films best known for her role opposite Peter Sellers in A Shot in the Dark Like Ingrid Bergman and Sophia Loren, the German actor Elke Sommer was part of the postwar crossover wave of European stars who pepped up the tail end of the Hollywood studio era. Sommer, who has died aged 85, matched them for glamour but not dramatic prestige. Her sex-kitten image gave her a decade in the limelight playing exotic continental paramours for leading men and glamorous assassins in the 1960s. With her beehive hairdo and an upturned nose she was initially self-conscious about, Sommer brought freshness and gameness to her most celebrated role: as Maria Gambrelli, the maid whom Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau goes out of his way to exonerate of murder in the 1964 comedy A Shot in the Dark. In the words of the trailer: “Number one sexpot, I mean suspect.” Continue reading...

The AI-generated sci-fi film Gods Don't Give Gifts has added a bit of star power: Pop star Grimes is going to appear in the movie. Billed as "the first AI film to come to theatres," Gods Don't Give Gifts is a notable test case for the commercial potential of AI films, and it releases on […]

Alcon Entertainment had accused the studio of helping Elon Musk create unlicensed promotional material using an artificial intelligence image generator. It continues to pursue claims against him and Tesla.

EXCLUSIVE: Mark Duplass, Mel Elsyn and Jay Duplass have joined Jan Naszewski’s short comedy film Exam as executive producers through the Duplass Brothers’ Productions label. To folks on the international film sales and distribution circuit, Naszewski is known as the congenial founding head of Warsaw-based company New Europe Film Sales. The industry veteran, who has […]

The Palm Springs International Film Awards, the event that annually kicks off the Palm Springs Film Festival in the heart of awards season, is revealing its list of 2027 honorees. We are updating as the list rolls out ahead of the opening-night gala ceremony, set for January 7, 2027 at the Palm Springs Convention Center, […]

Travis Knight built 231 puppets and 136 sets to make “Wildwood.” Over the Laika film’s opening three-day weekend, audiences at 2,942 theaters bought enough tickets to cover roughly a 10th of what the film reportedly cost. “Wildwood” opened to $12.2 million, behind DC’s “Clayface” and the Elizabeth Holmes documentary nobody can stop talking about. It […]

Fox Entertainment Studios has sealed a first-look development and producing deal with Cottage Industry Entertainment, the shingle launched by executives Lisa Hamilton Daly and Alysia Cotter Thomas. Among the slate of scripted television series and feature films in the works is “The Whittiers,” based on the Danielle Steel novel, which Fox has optioned to adapt […]

Perspective Films, a new documentary co-production initiative led by independent producer Jess Devaney, has unveiled its inaugural slate of films, Variety can report exclusively. The subjects of Perspective’s first five documentaries include the clash between federal immigration enforcement and the citizens of Minneapolis, the war in Gaza and the invention of C-SPAN. “Every story on […]

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety chief awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual […]

“The state of the theater industry is perhaps on the up,” Ken Ziffren told a ballroom of entertainment lawyers after a recent strong box office. In his annual look at the industry, the Hollywood legal mandarin today put AI, tax credits, the creator economy, M&A, YouTube, the NFL and more in the spotlight along with […]

EXCLUSIVE: Universal’s Snoop Dogg biopic Snoop continues to round out key supporting cast. Yesterday came the news that Cynthia Erivo is joining as Tupac’s mom, and today we can reveal that college basketball player Hercy Miller, in his feature debut, is set to portray Master P, while Zachariah Rogers (P-Valley) will be rapper The D.O.C., […]

Lionsgate Studios posted fiscal second quarter revenue of $667 million, up 41%, beating Wall Street forecasts. The standalone public company, which separated from Starz in 2025 and has been the focus of heated takeover speculation, narrowed its net loss for the three months ended in September to $15.5 million from $113.5 million the year earlier. […]

Matt Damon still can’t get “Ted” out of his head. Damon confirmed he passed on starring in the 2012 comedy as the foul-mouthed teddy bear’s best friend, John, who was later played by Mark Wahlberg “I don’t want to live with the regret, but I can tell you that I passed on ‘Ted’ and I’ve […]