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Emma Stone might be in a whole bunch of your favorite movies — but what are her favorites?

In January 2024, Stone spoke to Letterboxd — the social media site centered around movies — about her "four favorites," a regular interview the outlet does with major Hollywood celebrities. After appearing visibly stressed by the prospect of only picking four movies, Stone responds that Charlie Chaplin's 1931 comedy "City Lights" is her all-time favorite movie. "I love 'Network,'" Stone continued, name-checking the 1976 dark comedy that won Best Picture at the 49th Academy Awards in 1977. "'Mikey and Nicky,' I just saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago," Stone raved, citing Elaine May's movie (also from 1976) about a mobster and his best friend (played by John Cassavetes and Peter Falk). "I love almost every Cassavetes movie — that one wasn't Cassavetes, he's just in it. It's obviously Elaine May, who's a genius,...

[Editor’s note: For this article, The Hollywood Reporter only looked at the shortest and longest screen times in the lead acting categories. Best supporting actor and actress were not included.]

Longest Screen Times Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind (1939)

Movie Length 3 hrs 58 mins

Time Onscreen 2 hrs 23 mins

Percent of Run Time 60 Percent

Vivien Leigh holds the record for the longest performance to win an Oscar, though the work took a deep physical and mental toll on her. The film itself is also the longest to win best picture. At the 12th Academy Awards, Victor Fleming’s Gone With the Wind also won best supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel, who became the first African American to win an Oscar. Leigh was nominated alongside Bette Davis (Dark Victory), Irene Dunne (Love Affair), Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) and Greer Garson (Goodbye, Mr. Chips).

Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur (1959)

Movie Length 3 hrs 32 mins

Time Onscreen 2 hrs 1 min

Percent of Run Time 57.1 Percent...

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...

“Mozart: Rise of a Genius,” a three-part docu-drama commissioned by BBC and produced by 72 Films, has sold to the Middle East (BBC), Denmark (Dr), Sweden (Svt), Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania (Discovery) and Hong Kong & Macao (Now TV).

Fremantle is handling global distribution and will meet with interested buyers at Mipcom starting Monday, Oct. 21.

The show, which first premiered on Sept. 16 on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer, is taking a closer look at the iconic composer. But producer Joe Fell assured that any comparisons to Miloš Forman’s “Amadeus” are unwarranted.

“[‘Amadeus’] was a very good starting platform because classical music is not something people know that much about these days,” Fell tells Variety. “They don’t know the story behind these people’s lives. One exception to this rule is Mozart – precisely because ‘Amadeus’ was so famous.”

Despite the accolades that film received, much...

Sebastian Stan is sick of critics slamming Marvel movies, so much so that the actor is even comparing the upcoming MCU installment “Thunderbolts” to a classic film.

According to Stan, “Thunderbolts” is Marvel’s version of Miloš Forman’s Oscar-winning 1975 film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which centered on a mutinous uprising in a psych ward.

Stan told Variety that his role in “Thunderblots” as Bucky Barnes “was kind of like ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ — a guy coming into this group that was chaotic and degenerate, and somehow finding a way to unite them.”

Stan has played Bucky Barnes for more than a decade, starting with 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger.” For “Thunderbolts,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Pugh, Wyatt Russell, and David Harbour join Stan’s Bucky. The upcoming feature will help kick off Marvel’s Phase 5.

As for the debates over the merit of Marvel movies,...

Greek-American cinematographer Anastas Michos, ASC, Gsc, has established himself as a master of visual storytelling, seamlessly adapting his craft across genres. Recently, he collaborated with Shane Black on the highly anticipated Mark Wahlberg action-thriller Dirty Player, set for release next year. Michos’ versatility is evident in a portfolio that spans the romantic comedy The Kissing Booth, the horror classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D, and the Emmy-nominated Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

Over the years, Michos has worked with top-tier directors like Ron Howard, Neil Jordan, and Milos Forman, delivering breathtaking cinematography for films such as Mona Lisa Smile, Freedomland, and Man on the Moon. His expertise has brought visual beauty to the performances of Hollywood icons like Halle Berry, Julia Roberts, and Jennifer Hudson.

Before becoming a renowned Director of Photography, Michos was a pioneering Steadicam operator, working closely with inventor Garrett Brown and co-inventing the SkyCam. Michos’ technical prowess,...

Before landing the lead role in “Matlock,” Kathy Bates was “contemplating semi-retirement.” Now, she might never stop.

“My friends say I’ll probably be like Molière and die in my chair on the stage,” says Bates, “because it really is a life force for me.”

Ever since her first role in Miloš Forman’s 1971 film “Taking Off,” she has worked consistently. But it wasn’t until Bates was 42, when she won a best actress Oscar for playing the malevolent Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” that everything changed.

“I always knew going into this business that it was going to take me a while because I wasn’t a beauty queen,” the actor, 76, tells Variety. “I have to say I give an inner wink when I see friends who have been beauty queens who are no longer working because of ageism, and in my case, I’ve been able to continue working...

Plot: “Napoleon: The Director’s Cut” stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor and military leader. The film is a fresh and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine, played by Vanessa Kirby. The director’s cut delves deeper into Josephine’s origin story and features more extravagant costumes, new larger-than-life sets, and the previously unreleased Battle of Marengo scene. The audience is also given more details about Napoleon’s demise, from his attempted assassination to his failed invasion of Russia.

Review: When Ridley Scott’s Napoleon debuted in 2023, it received a less than enthusiastic welcome. While our own Chris Bumbray gave the film a positive score, he was the exception to the rule. The majority of critics and audiences found the film to be ambitious.

September marks Marcello Mastroianni’s centennial, and the Criterion Channel pays respect with a retrospective that puts the expected alongside some lesser-knowns: Monicelli’s The Organizer, Jacques Demy’s A Slightly Pregnant Man, and two by Ettore Scola. There’s also the welcome return of “Adventures In Moviegoing” with Rachel Kushner’s formidable selections, among them Fassbinder’s Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, Pialat’s L’enfance nue, and Jean Eustache’s Le cochon. In the lead-up to His Three Daughters, a four-film Azazel Jacobs program arrives.

Theme-wise, a set of courtroom dramas runs from 12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murder to My Cousin Vinny and Philadelphia; a look at ’30s female screenwriters includes Fritz Lang’s You and Me, McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, and Cukor’s What Price Hollywood? There’s also a giallo series if you want to watch an Argento movie and ask yourself,...

Veteran producer Stacey Sher still has love for critically-maligned “Poolman” directed by Chris Pine.

“It’s a gorgeous film. Chris made the movie he set out to make. He believed in it and I believed in Chris. I still do. He’s a really gifted filmmaker.”

Following its Toronto premiere, Pine’s film became one of the worst-reviewed titles last year, with Variety’s Owen Gleiberman calling it “not only the worst film I saw during the fall festival season but would likely be one of the worst films in any year it came out.”

But Sher believes you have to always support your director.

“Yes – if you believe in that person. Quentin Tarantino may have said that to me a long time ago: ‘The reviews of your movies aren’t written the weekend they come out. They are written 10, 20, 30 years after they come out. It’s all about how they endure.

The esteemed filmmaker behind the Johnny Cash bio-musical “Walk the Line” and superhero drama “Logan,” James Mangold has done it all. He’s torn up the race track with “Ford v Ferrari,” been the only director other than Steven Spielberg to take the helm of an “Indiana Jones” film with last year’s “Dial of Destiny,” and later this year, he’ll debut his Bob Dylan drama starring Timotheé Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown.” Before he began his career as a filmmaker, he learned from legends like Alexander Mackendrick (“The Sweet Smell of Success”) and Milos Forman (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”).

In a recent response post on X, Mangold explained his creative process and how it was passed down from these “masters,” as well as gathered from watching the work of others.

“I have learned this way of working from watching masters I admire. Some masters have been my teachers in person.

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 57th Academy Awards in 1985, honoring the films of 1984.

“Amadeus” topped the night with eight wins from a co-leading 11 nominations (tied with “A Passage to India”). The period drama nabbed Best Picture (the second of three Best Picture wins for producer Saul Zaentz), Best Director for Milos Forman and Best Actor for F. Murray Abaraham, who defeated co-star Tom Hulce. This marked the 12th and last time multiple performers from the same film were nominated for Best Actor.

See Oscars Playback: When ‘Terms of Endearment’ and Shirley MacLaine deserved this

But the ceremony might most be remembered for spawning the oft misquoted line, “You like me! You really like me!” What Sally Field, who won her second Best Actress statuette with “Places in the Heart,...

Song and dance man or gangster? Few stars of Hollywood’s Golden Era could claim they were equally well known for two such diverse genres. Yet, the legendary James Cagney worked hard to be able to make such a claim.

He was born on July 17, 1899, in New York City. His family was poor, and Cagney was sickly as a child. While growing up in a rough neighborhood, he learned a variety of skills, including tap dancing, street fighting, baseball and boxing. When he was 19, his father died, and he took odd jobs to help support his mother and siblings. On a whim, he auditioned for a role of a chorus girl in a local production. Although he had never had professional training, he landed the role and learned the dances from watching the other performers – and it never bothered him to dress as a girl and perform. Despite his mother...

The 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 28 to July 6) boasted not one but two competitions, the Crystal Globe and Proxima, presided over by the festival president Jiří Bartoška, artistic director Karel Och, and executive director Kryštof Mucha. The festival is the main summer event in the country, which attracts many sponsors and patrons who want to attend, and faces none of the financial hardships of such festivals as Berlin, Toronto, and Sundance. 130 films are shown, with 140,000 tickets sold. There is no room for growth, given the limited venues, from the many screening rooms at the festival hub, the Hotel Thermal, where juror Christine Vachon mixed Negronis for her fellow jurors between screenings, to the colorful arthouse Kino Drahomira, named after a revered Czech woman director.

The Eastern European festival falls between Cannes and Venice, and programs many films in its Crystal Globe Competition that did not make the cut at Cannes,...

Even Hollywood’s biggest stars may sometimes need to get away from Tinseltown and all that talk about box office declines, streaming challenges, and the threats of TikTok and generative AI.

No surprise then that the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) has found passionate fans among the A-list with its offering of summer refreshment, like a cocktail of positivity away from all the negativity.

In fact, Kviff has over the years often turned out not to only be a film fest, but also a big love fest for famous faces.

The late Oscar-winning Czech directing legend Milos Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, The People vs. Larry Flynt) had made it his mission to promote Kviff in Hollywood after its reboot in 1994 following the November 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended Communist rule in what was then Czechoslovakia country and the Czech Republic and Slovakia becoming independent states as...

Kevin Spacey will be honored with the Nations Award for Lifetime Achievement at a special gala evening in the historic southern Italian town of Taormina in July.

The organizers said The Usual Suspects and American Beauty Oscar winner will also give a short on-stage performance at the event, taking place on July 21 in Taormina’s 4,000-seats Greek-roman Theatre.

The event, which is part of a program of cultural events running in the landmark ancient amphitheater across the summer, is not connected to the Taormina Film Festival, which runs from July 12 to 19.

The honor comes as Spacey continues to battle multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him, which he has denied.

He was found not liable in a 2022 battery case brought by actor Anthony Rapp in the U.S., and not guilty in a UK trial in 2023, related to allegations by four men, but faces a fresh civil trial in the...

Benicio del Toro has had enough of schmoozing, small talk and pretending to laugh at people’s jokes in this year’s black-and-white trailer for the 2024 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), which was unveiled, as has become tradition, on Friday evening as part of the opening night festivities of the 58th edition of the fest in the Czech spa town.

Enough is enough, he thinks, while walking through a Berlin train station. And to cheer himself up, he turns to a traditional Karlovy Vary treat that he takes out of a bag, which also contains his Kviff honor statuette.

The Puerto Rican actor and producer received the Kviff President’s Award in 2022 and has now joined a who’s who of stars from Hollywood and beyond in starring in the usually offbeat trailers that don’t take themselves, the celebrities and the award statuette too seriously. Johnny Depp, Mel Gibson,...

Wil Wheaton is known for starring in the iconic Star Trek franchise in the role of Wesley Crusher in the iconic 1987 series Star Trek: The Next Generation. However, the actor revealed that some of the people were not honest with him, which could have potentially ruined his career!

Wil Wheaton in Big Bang Theory (2007-19) | Warner Bros. Television

Starring in the iconic series, Wheaton found worldwide fame for his portrayal of Crusher. When he joined another movie, one of the producers of the series straight up lied to Wheaton that they needed him on an urgent basis!

Wil Wheaton Found Another Opportunity

After the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation ended, Wil Wheaton got the amazing opportunity to work with notable director Miloš Forman in Valmont.

Wil Wheaton in a still from Star Trek: The Next Generation | Paramount Television

With the production of the next season some months away,...

Beloved French actor Isabelle Huppert will receive the Lumière Award in the city of Lyon in October.

Created by Cannes chief Thierry Frémaux, the Lumière Film Festival celebrates classic and contemporary cinema each fall. The Lumière Award honors a leading figure in the world of cinema and their entire body of work.

Huppert succeeds German director Wim Wenders who was awarded the prize in 2023. Former recipients include Tim Burton, Jane Campion, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, Francis Ford Coppola, Ken Loach, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda, Pedro Almodóvar, Miloš Forman, the Dardenne brothers and Wong Kar-wai, among others.

“It’s a great honor for me to receive the Lumière Award. It’s a magnificent prize, and so is its festival. It’s an award that bears the name of the inventors of cinema! Receiving it fills me with joy and pride,” said Huppert.

A prolific actor who shoots an average...

The 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff), which kicks off in the Czech spa town on Friday, promises a balanced diet of world premieres and other movies to discover, as well as hits and favorites from the recent festival circuit.

Central Europe’s biggest cinema fest and party once again dishes up a mix of regional and international films, including serious and some more fun fare, with a healthy serving of edgy, innovative, genre-bending, maybe somewhat outlandish-sounding movies, which it has often used as a special ingredient.

So without further ado, here is THR‘s look at some of the more unusual and offbeat-sounding films that Kviff will unspool for cineasts, tastemakers and industry insiders from June 28 through July 6.

Tiny Lights

Some filmmakers are proud of providing a new and different perspective on important topics and issues. Czech writer and director Beata Parkanová seems to have...

Green Border.Agnieszka Holland begs to differ with Claude Lanzmann. The director of Shoah (1985) had attacked the idea of depicting the Holocaust in a fiction film, claiming that its unfathomable horrors would inevitably be trivialized. In a 2013 National Gallery of Art lecture, “Viewing History through the Filmmaker’s Lens,” Holland made two counter-arguments: that feature films are a tool to educate as many people as possible about the Holocaust, and that “taking on issues that are impossible to explain or grasp rationally is one of the most important challenges of an artist.” Holland had made a number of provocative Holocaust dramas, including Angry Harvest (1985), Europa Europa (1990), and In Darkness (2011), all of which involve the plight of Jews who have improbably escaped capture and death. With these films, Holland looked back at events from decades in the past. In her latest film, she is dramatizing history while it is unfolding.Urgent without sacrificing artistry,...

When asked to picture a black-tie opening ceremony for a big film festival, you will likely think of immaculately dressed people clapping and enjoying glasses of wine or champagne before or after the show. You will also likely imagine a comedic monologue and laughter filling the event venue.

What you might not picture is flames, ice skaters on stage or dancers flying through the air. But those are exactly the kind of wild action scenes that the opening ceremony of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) in the Czech Republic has become known for.

What has been called Central Europe’s biggest cinema party of the summer pulls out all the stops to ensure that the audience in the crowded oval-shaped cinema hall of the Hotel Thermal, which can accommodate up to around 1,150 guests, is on the edge of their seats and ready to burst into thunderous applause and cheers.

Johnny Depp, Mel Gibson, Helen Mirren, Harvey Keitel, Milos Forman, Danny DeVito, Casey Affleck, Andy Garcia, John Malkovich — what reads like a who’s who of Hollywood star power is also part of the list of big names who have starred in trailers for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, whose 58th edition unspools June 28-July 6.

Typically, the shorts, often in black-and-white, debut during the opening ceremony of the film fest in the picturesque Czech spa town and are offbeat, eccentric, and full of attitude. They feature a previous Karlovy Vary honoree and what they did with their award.

“The idea of shooting festival trailers featuring distinctive representatives of world cinema was born 16 years ago,” Kviff highlighted recently in unveiling the stars who will get special awards this year, namely Viggo Mortensen, Daniel Brühl, and Clive Owen. Added Kviff executive director Kryštof Mucha: “It’s...

Opening night at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival often lures a top talent to accept the Kviff President’s Award, in this case Viggo Mortensen, the writer/director/star of his sophomore film, western “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” co-starring Vicky Krieps, which will open in the Czech Republic on July 4.

Every year, Kviff presents a new black-and-white short film at the opening night ceremony, to serve as a trailer of sorts for the festival. This year’s main protagonist is Oscar-winning actor and producer Benicio del Toro (“Traffic”), recipient of the Kviff President’s Award in 2022. The short film was written and directed by long-time creator of Kviff trailers Ivan Zachariáš. Del Toro took time off while shooting Wes Anderson’s new film in Berlin to work with Zachariáš, who collaborated on the trailer with cinematographer Jan Velický and editor Filip Malásek, and composed the music.

“We are glad...

After teaming with Noah Baumbach to direct one of the best-ever documentaries about filmmaking, De Palma, Jake Paltrow is back with a new feature. June Zero is a vividly textured telling of the preparations for the 1962 execution of Adolf Eichmann through a triptych of perspectives––a Jewish Moroccan prison guard, an Israeli police investigator (and Holocaust survivor), and a clever and precocious 13-year-old Libyan immigrant. In advance of the June 28 release from Cohen Media Group, we’re pleased to exclusively reveal a series of influences the director has programmed for NYC’s Quad Cinema.

“Origin Stories: Jake Paltrow’s Notes on June Zero,” which runs June 21-27, features seven films that informed and influenced June Zero, with titles spanning humanist deep-cuts of world cinema from the likes of Miloš Forman and Abbas Kiarostami to underscreened classics of 1970s Israeli cinema. Watch the exclusive trailer for the series below, along with...

The Locarno Film Festival will hand American producer Stacey Sher its Raimondo Rezzonico Award at this year’s edition, which runs August 7 – 17.

Sher will receive the award at the Swiss festival’s famous Piazza Grande on August 8. The tribute will include screenings of two titles from her career, including Erin Brockovich by Steven Soderbergh and Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino. On August 9, she will chair a panel conversation at the Forum @ Spazio Cinema.

The festival has said the award is handed out to honor “outstanding personalities who have played a major role in international production.”

Sher is one of the enduring names of American independent cinema. Her credits include 90s classics such as Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Matilda (1996), Gattaca (1997), and Out of Sight (1998). She has also produced series like Reno 911! and the Emmy award-winning Mrs. America (2020). And in 2021, she produced the 93rd Academy Award ceremony with Steven Soderbergh.

Discussing Sher’s honor,...

Die US-amerikanische Filmproduzentin Stacey Sher, die unter anderem mit Quentin Tarantino und Steven Soderbergh gearbeitet hat, wird bei der diesjährigen Ausgabe des Locarno Film Festival mit dem Raimondo Rezzonico Award ausgezeichnet. Im vergangenen Jahr war die Auszeichnung ebenfalls an eine Produzentin gegangen, Marianne Slot.

Die US-Produzentin Stacey Sher wird in Locarno geehrt (Credit: Locarno Film Festival)

„Von seinen Anfängen bis heute hätte uns das Kino nicht so überraschen können ohne den Mut, die Kühnheit und den vorausschauenden Blick derjenigen, die sich entschieden haben, freidenkerische und visionäre Projekte zu unterstützen“, schreibt das Locarno Film Festival in einer Selbstauskunft. Deshalb verleiht das Schweizer A-Festival seit 2002 den Raimondo Rezzonico Award an „Persönlichkeiten, die eine wichtige Rolle im internationalen Filmschaffen gespielt haben“.

Nachdem 2021 mit Gale Ann Hurd erstmals eine renommierte US-Produzentin diese Auszeichnung erhalten hatte, folgt im 77. Jahrgang mit Stacey Sher nunmehr eine weitere engagierte amerikanische Filmproduzentin aus der Welt des Independent Cinema. Gemeinsam...

One of the most celebrated comedies of 1999 is “Notting Hill,” starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Written by Richard Curtis and directed by Roger Michell, the film tells of a famous movie actress named Anna Scott who falls in love with a small-town England bookstore owner named William Thacker. Released 25 years ago in May 1999, “Notting Hill” was a major box office success, grossing $364 million worldwide on a $42 million budget. Read on for more about the “Notting Hill” 25th anniversary.

The nation’s critics gave mostly positive reviews to “Notting Hill,” unusual for a studio romantic comedy. Derek Elley in Variety wrote, “[The film] has buckets to spare of that rarest screen commodity — genuine, engaging charm — plus a cast and production values that fully deliver.” Wesley Morris in San Francisco Examiner said, “Director Michell isn’t content to rest on his stars’ slapstick laurels, mining instead the more sophisticated if subversive socio-romantic pratfalls in Curtis’ script.

Milos Forman’s multi-Oscar-winning epic “Amadeus” has received a major 40th anniversary present thanks to the Academy Film Archive: a 4k digital restoration which will be unveiled May 31st at the Academy Museum. There’s major anticipation for this new restoration; the event is sold out with stand-by tickets available on a first-come, first-serve basis. The restoration by the archive and the Saul Zaentz Co. with funding provided by Teatro Della Pace Film marks the first time the original theatrical release has been available in over two decades.

“Amadeus,” produced by Saul Zaentz and adapted by Peter Shaffer from his Tony Award-winning Broadway play, revolves around the rivalry in last half of the 18th century Vienna between the mediocre court composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) and his rival, the brilliant young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce). Shot on location in Prague, the film was a homecoming for Forman who...

Morgan Freeman revealed the most frustrating moment of his career and it also happened to be his career’s biggest regret. Freeman’s career took off with his Oscar-winning film Driving Miss Daisy. Before the role happened, Freeman wanted to play one particular character in a book-based movie and approached Miloš Forman, the director, to convince him to cast him.

Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy in a still from Driving Miss Daisy | The Zanuck Company

The Dark Knight actor didn’t get the job in Forman’s Ragtime. While the film wasn’t Forman’s best, Freeman was touched by the source material and wanted to play the African-American pianist in the film.

Morgan Freeman’s Biggest Regret Is Losing A Role In A Veteran Director’s Film

Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption | Castle Rock Entertainment

Morgan Freeman has been a remarkable presence in supporting roles in Hollywood.

Zack Norman, a veteran character and producer who appeared in films including Romancing The Stone, Cadillac Man and several for director Harry Jaglom along with guested on The Nanny, The A-Team, Baywatch and other series, died April 28 of natural causes. He was 83.

His son-in-law Jeff Briller confirmed the news to Deadline.

Born Howard Zuker on May 27, 1940, Norman received an executive Mba from Harvard Business School before embarking entering show business. He performed as a comedian through the latter half of the 1960s and working the Playboy Clubs, the Flamingo and Copacabana with the Temptations. He made his TV debut in 1969 doing stand-up on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

He made about a half-dozen films in the 1970s before working on a pair of memorable ’80s films: He had a small role in Milos Forman’s Ragtime (1981) before being cast as Cousin Ira in Robert Zemeckis’ Romancing the Stone (1984). His character uttered the oft-quoted line,...

Since earning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination upon making his film debut in Miloš Forman's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," Brad Dourif has been one of cinema's most distinctive character actors. He was utterly heartbreaking as the painfully shy Billy Bibbit in Forman's film, but thereafter he specialized in more unsettling types. Need someone to play a character who's a little creepy, squirrelly, or just flat-out weird? Dourif will likely be at or near the top of your list.

Onscreen, Dourif is probably best known to most moviegoers as the scheming Grima Wormtongue in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" movies, but he's made, shall we say, quite a killing as the voice of the stab-happy doll Chucky in the "Child's Play" films and, currently, the "Chucky" television series on SyFy and the USA Network.

Like so many great character actors, we've taken Dourif for granted over the years.

Exclusive: Comedian Tom Segura has identified the most promising vehicle yet to showcase his acting chops, as Deadline understands that he’s in talks for multiple roles in Dirty Rotten Bastard, a show biz-centric indie from Ed Helms & Mike Falbo’s Pacific Electric Picture Company.

Helmed by Ryan McNeely and Josh Martin, aka The Director Brothers, the film tells the insane true story of an aspiring filmmaker who is kidnapped by deranged lounge singer Tony Clifton. Initially drawn to document Clifton’s world, he is thrust into a chaotic journey of sex, celebrity, and comedy, blurring the lines between observer and participant, and testing his sanity.

Segura will play legendary avant-garde comedian Andy Kaufman’s larger-than-life comedic persona Clifton, as well as the performer’s friend and longtime collaborator Bob Zmuda.

Zmuda was known to switch off with Kaufman in portraying Clifton, a foul-mouthed lounge singer out of Las Vegas,...

Netflix is continuing to roll out its celebration of iconic films, this time turning the page to 1984.

As part of the streaming platform’s “Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection,” Netflix has unveiled the 1984 films celebrating their 40-year anniversary in 2024 with classics like “Footloose” and “Sixteen Candles” alongside Oscar contenders “Amadeus” and “Iceman.”

The Milestone Movies hail from Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, and Sony — the distributors that license content to Netflix.

Starting today, April 1, 2024, Netflix subscribers can revisit Brian de Palma’s erotic noir “Body Double” and Kevin Bacon’s breakout performance in “Footloose.” How about a double feature? There’s also “Repo Man” and “Beverly Hills Cop,” streaming just in time for franchise reboot “Beverly Hills Cop: Axle F” out this summer.

In addition to the cinematic celebrations in your Netflix queue, in-person special screenings of select films will continue at the Paris Theater in New York and Los Angeles...

Michael Douglas, known for his effortless charm and leading roles in blockbusters, has always had a keen eye for compelling stories. However, even the most seasoned Hollywood veterans face hurdles sometimes. There was a period when a film he passionately championed faced an uphill battle.

Michael Douglas || Ant-Man

Studios, usually eager to back a proven talent, surprisingly avoided this project like a hot potato. Douglas was very interested in the project, believing it could be a cinematic force.

Suggested“It was a Michael Douglas movie”: Sharon Stone Believes Not Having Her Name on ‘Basic Instinct’ Poster Despite Being Its Lead Star Weirdly Worked Out in Her Favor

Yet, his enthusiasm wasn’t enough to secure easy passage. The movie was eventually made and turned out to be a blockbuster.

Nobody Wanted To Distribute One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest At First

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was...

Actor Winona Ryder has played some of the most iconic characters in cinema. But although Hollywood has been good to her, she once felt the film industry was becoming more and more corrupted.

Winona Ryder saw a lot of change in the film industry Winona Ryder | Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

According to Ryder, the film industry was in a much different place in her older years than when she first started. She felt that back in the 80s and early 90s, during her rise to fame, there wasn’t much insider information available to the public. But there was a shift somewhere along the way. To Ryder, the film industry was focused more on its business instead of its art. And this worried her.

“I just am so sick of it that, it makes me not want to go see movies when you know everything. How much they cost, how much people are paid,...

James Hamilton is an iconic chronicler of New York City culture, a photographer who, throughout his career, has captured the likes of Charles Mingus, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, David Lynch, Jean-Luc Godard, Meryl Streep, Alfred Hitchcock, Liza Minnelli, and Wes Anderson. Now, he gets the documentary treatment in the film “Uncropped,” directed by D.W. Young and executive-produced by Wes Anderson himself. IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer below.

“Uncropped” also turns its focus on the heyday of alternative print journalism in New York. Hamilton was best known for his photographs of the art and music scene in NYC throughout the ’70s and ’80s while working as a staffer at Crawdaddy, The New York Herald, Harper’s Bazaar, The Village Voice, and the New York Observer. The film also tracks his career and life beginning in his early days at Pratt in Brooklyn, then an apprenticeship where he learned how to shoot,...

The new film from Johan Renck, efficiently titled Spaceman, offers two central conceits. The first: that a vessel en route to a cloud of purple dust, somewhere in the region of Venus, might be visited by a benevolent alien with the ability to guide a human through their own memories. The second: that the Czech Space Agency’s chief representatives, on earth and off, might be played by Isabella Rossellini and Adam Sandler. Besides directing the music video for David Bowie’s “Blackstar,” Renck is best-known for Craig Mazin’s TV show Chernobyl, on which he helmed all five episodes. With Spaceman Renck borrows that show’s aesthetic: the sickly green-and-yellow color palette, the retro-futurist Soviet designs, the stifling solemnity. One thing you won’t find in Chernobyl, however, is Hanuś: an arachnid with Paul Dano’s voice, a body the size of a labrador, and six unblinking eyes, each...

In 1984, Milos Forman brought Amadeus to the big screen in an epic tale of secrets, scandals and buffoonery amongst the world of esteemed musical composer Wolfgang Mozart. The film was based on the 1979 stage play by Peter Shaffer. The UK broadcast network, Sky, has been developing a new TV series adaptation of the play in the past few years, and the ball is now rolling with the casting of the story’s central figure. Deadline has revealed that White Lotus actor Will Sharpe has now been cast as Wolfgang Mozart in the Sky original series.

The synopsis of the show, per Deadline, reads, “Adapted from Peter Shaffer’s stage play, Amadeus is set within the musical hub of bustling Vienna at the end of the 18th century, as the 25-year-old titular character arrives in the city no longer a child and determined to carve his own path. Recently unemployed and...

Feud: Capote vs. The Swans has honored the late Treat Williams with a touching tribute.

The card, which read “In Memory of Treat Williams 1951-2023”, appeared at the end of last night’s episode of Ryan Murphy’s FX anthology series. You can see it below.

Williams portrayed former CBS head and media tycoon Bill Paley in the series, an adaptation of Laurence Leamer’s bestselling book Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era. The series chronicles the literary scandal that sparked a fallout between writer Truman Capote and a high-society group of women, known as his “Swans.”

Feud was Williams’ final role. The veteran actor had wrapped production shortly before he died in a tragic motorcycle accident on June 12, 2023 in Dorset, Vt. He was 71.

Williams was best known for playing Dr. Andy Brown on Greg Berlanti’s Everwood during his nearly half-century career,...

Yorgos Lanthimos. Christopher Nolan. Justine Triet. Jonathan Glazer.

What do these four directors have in common? They were all among the nominees for this year’s Academy Awards, and none of them were born in the United States. Lanthimos is Greek, Triet is French, and Nolan and Glazer are British. Among the nominees, only New Yorker Martin Scorsese is American-born.

The last time only one American-born director made it to that year’s Best Director lineup was back in 1997, when Miloš Forman (Czech), Scott Hicks (Australian), Mike Leigh and Anthony Minghella (both English) received Oscar nominations. Of course, this is only technically true. Joel Coen was the one American in the category, yet it was due to a guild rule that he received sole credit for directing despite his helming “Fargo” with his brother Ethan, who would’ve been the second American among the nominees.

SEEOscars: Justine Triet is 8th...

Annette Bening is an actor’s actor. Like many of the greats before her, she began her career in the theatre. Through the 80s, she quietly compiled a library of rich, complex characters before making her Tony-nominated broadway debut in 1987’s “Coastal Disturbances.”

Bening then made her well deserved transition over to Hollywood with John Hughes’ “The Great Outdoors.” The film didn’t perform as well as hoped, nor did Milos Forman’s “Valmont” which was released the following year, but they both paved the way for Bening’s eventual Oscar-nominated breakout as Myra Langtry in Stephen Frears’ “The Grifters.”

She got particularly close to Oscar gold with “American Beauty” in 2000. Annette bagged the BAFTA and SAG award for her iconic portrayal of the colourfully volatile wife-in-crisis, Carolyn Burnham. She lost to Hilary Swank (“Boys Don’t Cry”) though, who had edged her out at the Globes.

Swank clearly was Bening’s kryptonite,...

Jackie Brown – Picture: Miramax Films

Happy New Year! It’s a great start to the New Year on Netflix, with some great new movies and television shows to binge on.

If you missed any new titles added to Netflix this past week, check out our New on Netflix section for the complete list.

Here are the best new movies and TV shows added to Netflix this week;

John Wick Movie Collection

Films: 3

Genre: Action, Thriller | Runtimes: 101 / 122 / 130 Minutes

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick

One of the most popular action franchises in recent memory, three of the four John Wick memories are now available to stream on Netflix.

John Wick, a former assassin, is grieving over the loss of his wife. To help him through his grief, she bought him a puppy before her death, but after a home invasion results in the death of the dog and...

Ernst Goldschmidt, the sales agent who co-founded Orion Pictures and oversaw distribution of some of last century’s biggest movies, died last month from heart failure in his hometown of Badenweller in Germany. He was 92.

The respected exec’s December 2 death was announced by his family.

Starting his career in 1957 as a salesman with MGM in Zurich, Goldschmidt joined United Artists (UA) in 1958 as General Manager of their Swiss office, before taking the reins at UA/Germany. He was promoted to European Sales Manager in Paris in 1968 and then named President of UA Europe two years later, a post he held for five years. UA relocated him to New York in 1975 as VP International Sales at the time when it was distributing films from the likes of Woody Allen, Sylvester Stallone, Saul Zaentz, Milos Forman and Brian de Palma.

During his 22-year tenure at UA, Goldschmidt oversaw international distribution on the James Bond franchise,...

Most of the central cast in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" were young when they appeared in Miloš Forman's 1975 movie. But with Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and the inimitable Jack Nicholson (to name just a few of the film's stars), Forman was going to have to try really hard to mess up his adaptation of Ken Kesey's 1962 novel. Luckily, the Czech director actually did a standout job of it, delivering a film often cited as one of the 20th century's finest. After a decade of delays, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" made it to the big screen, and while Forman's direction was excellent, the movie perhaps wouldn't occupy as vaunted a position as it does without that top-notch cast.

As producer Michael Douglas explained in a 2017 Guardian piece, the cast and crew were about as committed as you could get. Not only were each of the...

Clockwise from top: Society Of The Snow (Netflix), Good Grief (Netflix), Sixty Minutes (Netflix)Image: The A.V. Club

Netflix kicks off 2024 with some high-profile originals, fan favorites, and cinema classics. J.A. Bayona’s Society Of The Snow is based on the true story of the Uruguayan 1972 Andes flight disaster and its 16 survivors.

Michael Mann is one of the top directors in Hollywood, long used to calling his own shots. When Joe Roth was running Disney Motion Pictures, he asked Mann if his “60 Minutes” expose “The Insider” with Russell Crowe and Al Pacino (1999) would make money. “Probably not,” Mann said. Roth made it anyway. It wasn’t a hit ($60 million worldwide), but it scored seven Oscar nominations, including Picture, Director, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. Like many of Mann’s movies, it also gained stature over time.

But for all of Mann’s classic films, there are as many movies that didn’t get made in his oeuvre. It takes a lot for him to decide that he should expend the time and energy to go forward with a project, partly because his standards of performance are so high. For example, after directing four movies with high degrees of difficulty in a row Mann...

Since 2012, revered filmmaker Martin Scorsese has belonged to a select group of three-time Best Director Golden Globe winners that grew to include six members when Steven Spielberg took last year’s prize for “The Fabelmans.” Over a decade later, the ever-active octogenarian has a strong chance at rising above his fellow triple champs by achieving another directing victory for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” thus following Elia Kazan as the second quadruple honoree in this category’s 81-year history. Since this would be his 10th time competing here, he would also join Spielberg in the rare distinction of having double-digit directing mentions.

Scorsese earned his first Golden Globe Award in 2003 for “Gangs of New York” (on his sixth bid) and was then further lauded for “The Departed” (2007) and “Hugo” (2012). His remaining half dozen directing notices came for his work on “Raging Bull” (1981), “Goodfellas” (1991), “The Age of Innocence” (1994), “Casino” (1996), “The Aviator...

Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” is a movie that French people love to hate. But despite harsh criticism in France, the historical epic smashed the box office and grossed over $9.76 million from 1.15 million tickets sold in its first two weeks in theaters.

Ironically, “Napoleon” got the lowest score of all of Scott’s recent movies on Allociné, the local equivalent of IMDb, with 2.3 stars out of 5 from 4,659 users’ reviews, yet it’s one of Scott’s biggest hits in France. “Napoleon,” starring Joaquin Phoenix as Napoléon Bonaparte, a Corsica-born officer who became Emperor of France, and Vanessa Kirby as his wife as Joséphine de Beauharnais, world premiered in Paris on Nov. 14, a few days after the end of the SAG-AFTRA strike.

Scott’s last two movies, “The Last Duel” and “House of Gucci,” were warmly reviewed in France, and yet they sold only 425,000 and 800,000 tickets respectively during their releases there.

Actor Kirk Douglas hoped to star in an onscreen adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest after doing the stage version. But his father Kirk Douglas didn’t think much of the casting decision, especially when he wanted Nicholson’s starring role for himself.

Kirk Douglas had no idea who Jack Nicholson was Kirk Douglas and Michael Douglas | Kypros/Getty Images

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a film that both Douglas and his son Michael were extremely passionate about. Douglas famously starred in the Broadway play of Cuckoo’s Nest back in the early 1960s as Randle McMurphy. He also owned the rights to the play, and had hopes of translating it to the big screen. But he had a hard time finding a studio that was willing to make the movie.

Eventually, he handed over the rights to his son Michael, who was able to secure funding for the feature.