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This September, Hulu is bringing you a lot of entertainment with the highly anticipated Season 2 of The Old Man, an all-new sports drama series, and the second season of the brilliant animated series Krapopolis. However, for the purposes of this article, we are only including the films that are coming to Hulu this month and have a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score. So, check out the 5 best films that are coming to Hulu in September 2024 with a 90% or higher Rotten Tomatoes score.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (September 1)

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a dystopian sci-fi action thriller directed by Matt Reeves from a screenplay co-written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver. The 2014 film is the second film in the Planet of the Apes reboot film series and it revolves around Caesar, the chimpanzee leader of the evolved apes. He...

The strongest viewership of Netflix’s Bridgerton proved people still rave about period titles and, in particular, intricate stories, set in the 18-19th centuries. Besides, before the success of this series, we saw such gems of the 2010s, as Mia Wasikowska’s Jane Eyre (2011), Nicole Kidman’s The Beguiled (2017) and Saoirse Ronan’s Little Women (2019).

However, there is a female-led period movie that stands out among all of them. Back in 2018, it amazed the audience by its perfect mix of black comedy elements, deep drama, impeccable acting performances and quite an authentic atmosphere and tone.

Set in the early 18th century during the long war of England against France, the movie starts by introducing us to Queen Anne, who is in poor health and isn’t interested in governing at all. The one who is really into it is Sarah Churchill, her advisor and lover.

Lady Sarah, who appears to be Duchess of Marlborough,...

Yorgos Lanthimos is an acquired taste. A key figure in the "Greek Weird Wave," he shares Wes Anderson's fondness for deadpan acting, artificial dialogue, and general oddities. However, the worlds and people in Lanthimos' films aren't just quirky, they're often aggressively unpleasant. More than that, they tend to be governed by twisted and bizarre "rules" and social norms. For example, in "The Lobster," all adults are required to have a romantic partner or find one within a short amount of time. Those who fail to do so are turned into an animal of their choice. Likewise, in "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," a surgeon is tormented by a teenager with unnatural abilities in retaliation for failing to save the boy's father on the operating table.

It's easy to intellectually appreciate the point Lanthimos is making with his work -- that the "rules" we follow in our own lives...

Who would have ever thought the guy who directed a movie about Colin Farrell possibly turning into a Lobster would become an Oscar darling? But in spite of all the taboos he’s determined to break, that’s exactly the career trajectory Yorgos Lanthimos has had.

An idiosyncratic filmmaker, Lanthimos’ filmmaking quirks — stilted speech, deadpan acting, painstakingly framed cinematography, and pessimistic stories about the cruelty of men, both on a singular and societal level — haven’t disappeared since he made the leap to Hollywood. But the Greek director has slowly found himself an awards season staple. After a Best Foreign Language Film nomination for his breakout “Dogtooth” and a screenplay nod for his English-language debut “The Lobster,” Lanthimos ended up with ten nominations at the Oscars in 2019 for his darkly comedic period drama “The Favourite.” An acidic and subversive love story about the rule of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and her scheming court favorites,...

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Mark Miller, who portrayed the patriarch of a castle-dwelling family on the 1960s NBC sitcom Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and co-wrote the Keanu Reeves-starring romantic drama A Walk in the Clouds, has died. He was 97.

Miler died Friday in Santa Monica of natural causes, a family spokesperson announced. Survivors include his daughter and Tony-nominated actress Penelope Ann Miller.

Miller also wrote, produced and starred in the classic family film Savannah Smiles (1982), which was inspired by and named for his youngest daughter. It’s the story of a runaway girl (Bridgette Andersen) who forms an improvised family with the two escaped convicts (Miller, Donovan Scott) who find her.

On Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, which aired for two seasons and 58 episodes from 1965-67, the native Texan played college professor Jim Nash opposite Patricia Crowley as newspaper writer Joan Nash. They are the...

First-time Oscar nominee Olivia Colman just won big — and she looked shocked!

Colman, 45, took home the Best Actress statuette for her role in The Favourite at the 2019 Academy Awards on Sunday, where she gave a hilarious and emotional speech after her surprising win. The British actress played Queen Anne months before she’s set to take over as Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown later this year.

“It’s genuinely quite stressful. This is hilarious. I got an Oscar,” Colman said as she looked at her trophy. “I have to thank lots of people. Yorgos [Lanthimos], my best director...

Actor receives accolade for her role as a mother in Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk

Regina King has won the best supporting actress Oscar at the 91st Academy Awards for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk.

It was King’s first Oscar nomination, and she triumphed in a field containing Amy Adams, who played Dick Cheney’s wife Lynne in Vice, and Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone who played Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham, respectively, in The Favourite. King was the strong favourite for the award, having taken the Golden Globe for best supporting actress. However, she lost the Bafta to Weisz, and was surprisingly not even nominated for the Screen Actors Guild award.

With just a few days left until the Oscars, Best Supporting Actress remains one of the most wide-open categories. The nominees are Amy Adams (“Vice”), Marina de Tavira (“Roma”), Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), Emma Stone (“The Favourite”) and Rachel Weisz (“The Favourite”), but our pundits believe this one is between King and Weisz. And for good reason: They’re the only ones who’ve racked up statuettes at televised precursors. So let’s take a closer look at them.

Regina King

Pros

— After going 3-for-4 at the Primetime Emmy Awards, King is arguably one of the most popular and respected actresses in the industry, especially as all three of her Emmy wins were upsets. The key question is: Is she as beloved within the film academy as she is within the TV academy?

— She’s been the frontrunner from the start of the season, gaining early momentum...

Arguably one of 2018’s best films was “The Favourite,” a period comedy-drama written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It reaped 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, making it the most nominated film alongside Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma.” But will the love for the movie translate into a Best Picture win?

Set in early 18th century England, “The Favourite” chronicles Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and her distant cousin Abigail Hill’s (Emma Stone) tantalizing power games to one-up each other to be the chief adviser to the temperamental Queen Anne (Olivia Colman).

What could have easily been your conventional stuffy period drama ended up being a juicy, refreshing take on power dynamics, gender roles and social hierarchy in 18th century Britain. Lanthimos’ directorial choices, as well as Davis and McNamara’s script, which blurs the lines between comedy and drama seamlessly with its witty, razor-sharp dialogue,...

It’s called the Dream Factory for a reason.

Hollywood has been churning out movies about dreamers for decades, and this year’s best picture contenders follow that cinematic tradition: Dreamers abound on screen and behind the camera.

Cleo, the indefatigable domestic at the center of Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma,” seems to yearn for her own family while placidly caring for her single-mother employer and brood. But after fate (and a particularly toxic rat bastard of a boyfriend) undo what we thought were Cleo’s dreams, a day at the beach reveals she’s felt a part of a family all along. Her deepest instincts are to protect those children, one of whom will grow up to be the auteur, who will struggle for years to shape and finance a black-and-white, English-subtitled, stunning and highly personal tribute to a poignant life of self-sacrifice.

In two history-based epics it’s the powers behind the throne,...

Rachel Weisz charmed the entire winners’ room backstage at the BAFTAs as she celebrated her first win for Yorgos Lanthimos‘ “The Favourite.” “I’m a bit shell-shocked,” she readily admitted in our interview. The actress had contended here 13 years for “The Constant Gardener” up in lead but lost to Reese Witherspoon (“Walk the Line”). Both went on to win Oscars, with Weisz contending in the supporting actress category. She could well win that Academy Award again this year.

The actress said any plaudits for her performance were only because of the efforts of her co-stars: Olivia Colman (who won the Best Actress award) and Emma Stone (who was also nominated in the supporting race). “My performance completely relied on the other two. I think it would be fair to say that each one of us relied on the other two. It was, I think, a true ensemble. They definitely, definitely made me better.

Rachel Weisz is far and away the, uh, favorite to win Best Supporting Actress for “The Favourite” at Sunday’s BAFTA Awards. Per our latest predictions, Weisz has 16/5 odds to prevail and win her first career BAFTA.

Weisz was in a close race with No. 2 Amy Adams (“Vice”), but she pulled away after the Screen Actors Guild Awards following BAFTA and Oscar snubbee Emily Blunt‘s win for “A Quiet Place.” Weisz now has the support of all eight of our Experts, eight Editors and 17 of our Top 24 Users.

With Oscar frontrunner Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) Mia from this race as well and “The Favourite”‘s strong nomination showing, it’s a prime opportunity for Weisz to snag a big win and emerge as the alternative to King. She’s already earned the British Independent Film Award and the London Film Critics Circle Award for her turn as Sarah Churchill.

Mary Poppins is practically perfect in every way, but Mahershala Ali and Rachel Weisz could be actually perfect at the Oscars. The Oscar winners are on the verge of their second nominations, for “Green Book” and “The Favourite,” respectively, and could become the seventh and eighth actors to have a 2-for-2 record.

Only six actors have never lost an Oscar from multiple nominations:

1. Luise Rainer: Best Actress for “The Great Ziegfeld” (1936) and “The Good Earth” (1937)

2. Vivien Leigh: Best Actress for “Gone with the Wind” (1939) and “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951)

3. Helen Hayes: Best Actress for “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” (1932) and Best Supporting Actress for “Airport” (1970)

4. Kevin Spacey: Best Supporting Actor for “The Usual Suspects” (1995) and Best Actor for “American Beauty” (1999)

5. Hilary Swank: Best Actress for “Boys Don’t Cry” (1999) and “Million Dollar Baby” (2004)

6. Christoph Waltz: Best Supporting Actor for “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) and “Django Unchained” (2012)

Two...

Alfonso Cuarón’s Netflix-backed memoir and Yorgos Lanthimos period comedy dominated, while Ethan Hawke and Olivia Colman took home acting honours

Alfonso Cuarón’s domestic memoir Roma and scabrous period comedy The Favourite dominated the London Film Critics’ Circle awards, which were handed out on 20 January.

Roma, which has been backed to the hilt by its distributors, Netflix, secured the film of the year award and Cuarón won director of the year. With the Acadmey awards nominations being announced on 22 Jamuary, Roma appears to consolidate its position as an Oscar frontrunner. However, The Favourite, which is also a leading Oscar contender, took home the most awards: four, including actress of the year for Olivia Colman (who plays troubled monarch Queen Anne), supporting actress for Rachel Weisz (who plays power-behind-the-throne Sarah Churchill), and British/Irish film of the year.

This article about Yorgos Lanthimos first appeared in the TheWrap Magazine’s Oscar Nominations Preview issue.

Making an 18th-century costume drama feel as fresh and weird as “The Favourite” is unusual, but let’s be honest: It’d be an even bigger surprise if a movie from Yorgos Lanthimos didn’t feel fresh and weird.

The Greek director has been turning heads since he landed a surprise Oscar nomination for his defiantly surreal “Dogtooth” in 2009, and the string of movies he’s made since then — “Alps,” “The Lobster” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” — have used dark humor and satiric exaggeration to poke wicked fun at the foibles of human nature. So why wouldn’t a period piece set in the court of England’s Queen Anne be more of the same, only swathed in fancy clothes and opulent surroundings?

“I was interested in doing something within the period-film genre,...

She certainly is the favorite!

Olivia Colman took home the statue for best actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy at Sunday’s 2019 Golden Globes for her role in The Favourite. She beat out fellow nominees Emily Blunt (Mary Poppins Returns), Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade), Charlize Theron (Tully) and Constance Wu (Crazy Rich Asians).

“I’m not going to cry because my entire table will point and laugh at me, I’ve been crying all evening,” Colman, 44, said in her acceptance speech, before thanking “my bitches” — costars Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.

“I would like to tell you how...

When Joe Alwyn turned up on the Hertfordshire, England set of The Favourite he had done his homework.  Having recently wrapped his other period drama, Mary Queen of Scots, he expected he'd need to devote the same effort to delving into the life of Samuel Masham, husband to Abigail Masham, who fiercely competed with cousin Sarah Churchill for the affections of Britain's Queen Anne. Instead, when he arrived to the two-week pre-production boot camp with the rest of the cast, he got a crash course in humility.  "It was a lot of strange exercises and games and switching parts and rolling around on the floor and dancing," he recalled to W of the workshops led by director...

It was a year of belly laughs, guffaws and giggles at the multiplex in 2018 as movies like “Incredibles 2,” “Deadpool 2” and “Crazy Rich Asians” proved that comedies are no joke at the box office, where they raked in more than $1 billion in North America.

That trio also delivered three of the most amusing scenes of the year, while several industry members also chose scenes from “Can You Ever Forgive Me,” “The Favourite,” “Game Night,” “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” “A Simple Favor,” “Death of Stalin,” “A Simple Favor” and “Blockers” for this informal survey.

Participants include Sally Kirkland, nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award for “Anna”; Carl Kurlander, who wrote “St. Elmo’s Fire”; Adele Lim, co-writer of the “Crazy Rich Asians” script; actress Stephanie Erb, whose credits include “Ray Donovan”; “Sully” screenwriter and “Elf” producer Todd Komarnicki; producer Jude S. Walko; publicist Andrew Cohen; and standup comedians Andy Au,...

Dec 12, 2018

Hallmark Christmas Movies, The Favourite, SpaceX, and more in today's daily Link Tank!

SpaceX is making steps in its quest to reuse rockets.

"SpaceX’s quest to reuse rockets took another step forward Tuesday. In a Twitter response to a fan question, CEO Elon Musk revealed that the company is likely to be able to re-use the fairing protective shield after it’s landed in the ocean. The prospect is a big step forward for the company’s recovery technology, paving the way for future missions to Mars and beyond."

Read more at Inverse.

How does The Favourite tackle Lgbt issues?

"Last night, I treated myself to the historical dramedy The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, from a screenplay written by historian Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara. It was delightful; the only thing I would have wished it had done differently was to have the same diversity that Mary...

Those who possess more than my cursory knowledge of the history of British royalty have made it clear Yorgos Lanthimos’s new movie The Favourite is bollocks as a historical document. This is a claim that is most likely true, and frankly, I don’t have a problem with that– I doubt the director of Dogtooth and The Lobster, to name two of Lanthimos’s previous warm-hearted crowd-pleasers, does either. I suspect he’d propose that sticking to the facts is a job better suited to schoolteachers than a director possessed with the desire to get to a different sort of truth. And anyway, historical veracity, such as it exists in Hollywood and international cinema, has never been a guarantor of much of anything beyond great cinematography and costumes, and often of a certain stuffiness of attitude which suggests the filmmaker’s concern with nutritional value has supplanted her/his...

Some actors who win Oscars are cursed, drifting into obscurity after their moment in the spotlight. But other actors are cursed in a different way: despite appearing in Oscar-friendly work they somehow can’t manage to get back into the race. That’s true of Rachel Weisz, who won Best Supporting Actress for “The Constant Gardener” (2005), but hasn’t been nominated again in the 13 years since. However, it looks like this might be her “Favourite” year.

Weisz was a strong favorite throughout her “Constant Gardener” campaign, winning both the Golden Globe and the SAG Award on her way to the Oscar stage, and she has appeared in multiple Oscar-nominated films since then — “The Lovely Bones” (2009), “The Lobster” (2015) and “Youth” (2015) — in addition to other projects that seemed like they might appeal to awards voters like “The Whistleblower” (2010), “The Light Between Oceans” (2016) and “My Cousin Rachel” (2017), but none of those caught on with the academy.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSNicolas Roeg on the set of The Man Who Fell to EarthThis is a rather tragic week in cinema history, with the passing of filmmakers Nicolas Roeg and Bernardo Bertolucci, screenwriter and playwright William Goldman, and character actor Ricky Jay. We will miss these visionaries and their singular artistry.In partnership with U.K. charity Changing Faces, which aims to "remove the stigma around disfigurement," the BFI has announced it will no longer provide funding to films that feature "facially-scarred villains." This initiative is in addition to the institution's new diversity commitment. Recommending Viewinga stunning trailer for Jean-Luc Godard's The Image Book, premiering soon in U.K. cinemas on December 2nd, and on Mubi there starting December 3rd. For Filmkrant, Cristina Álvarez López & Adrian Martin's latest video essay on the use of archival...

In Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” Emma Stone plays Abigail Masham, the daughter of a disgraced lord who makes a Walter White-esque rise to the top of Queen Anne’s court…at the cost of her morals.

It’s a chilling tale of how corruption and deception can take over a person obsessed with power, but was the real Abigail Masham really like that?

Did she manipulate and betray Sarah Churchill, the woman that took her into Queen Anne’s inner circle, to protect the status she rose to by gaining Queen Anne’s favor?

Also Read: 'The Favourite' Fact Check: Was Queen Anne Really Lesbian?

Historians have had a hard time tracking Abigail’s rise to power, as there is very little historical record of her from court letters and documents. But there are some major differences between some parts of her life that are known and how...

Warning: Contains major spoilers for “The Favourite” Do not read unless you’ve seen the movie.

Historical accuracy isn’t exactly what Yorgos Lanthimos is going for in his latest film, “The Favourite.” Much like Armando Iannucci’s “The Death of Stalin,” Lanthimos is bending the facts of his period piece in the service of a gripping narrative with a dark moral… namely the corrupting nature of power.

But while the details of the rivalry between Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham for the affections of Queen Anne — like Sarah being poisoned — might have been creative license by Lanthimos and screenwriters Tony McNamara and Deborah Davis, the subject of whether Queen Anne had a secret romance with either of those two women was one that influenced her reign.

Also Read: 'The Favourite' Crowned With Indie Box Office's Largest Screen Average in Two Years

According to the biography “Queen Anne:...

In our previous installment of this two-part companion piece for The Favourite, we explored the life of the real Queen Anne and Sarah Churchill – played, respectively, by the fantastic Olivia Colman and Rachel Weisz in Yorgos Lanthimos’ darkly hilarious new film. As you might expect, the screenplay embellishes the actual events a bit, though there’s […]

The post Exploring the Strange and Absurd True History of ‘The Favourite’ [Part Two] appeared first on /Film.

Chicago – Looking through auteur Yorgos Lanthimos’ filmography, you’ll recognize a style that combines both visual beauty and narrative absurdism. The Lanthimos effect, or Lanthimo-nium as I like to call it, elevates any piece of work to such a high degree that often times the meanings go over our heads. In his most mainstream effort to date, “The Favourite” will likely become your favorite of his works.

Rating: 4.5/5.0

This time around, Lanthimos uses the early 18th century as his playground as he explores the later years of England’s Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), which were filled with war, scandal, and decadence. It is well-documented that Queen Anne had an interest in the fairer sex, keeping close confidantes like Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Masham (Emma Stone). Anne was known for having a myriad of health, and possibly mental health, problems, all exacerbated by the typical sense of entitlement that royalty tends to feel.

The Favourite is, predictably, a somewhat fictionalized telling of the story of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) and the rivalry between two of the most important women in her life: Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Masham (Emma Stone). But you might be surprised to learn that the latest work of darkly comedic idiosyncrasy from Yorgos […]

The post Exploring the Strange and Absurd True History of ‘The Favourite’ [Part One] appeared first on /Film.

Rachel Weisz was the sole member of “The Favourite” trio to attend the 2018 Gotham Awards, and she used her acceptance speech while receiving this year’s Special Jury Award For Ensemble Performance to send a potent message to the press. The Gotham Awards gave Weisz and co-stars Emma Stone and Olivia Colman the Jury Prize.

“I hope one day in the not-so-distant future we don’t get asked what it was like to share the screen with other women,” Weisz said at the end of her otherwise humorous speech. “Because I don’t think you ever ask men that. But I could be wrong.”

Weisz poked fun at her co-stars’ absences by bringing out cardboard cutout masks of Stone and Colman’s faces. “The Favourite” features the three women as co-leads, and much of their press tour since the film launched at the Venice Film Festival has included questions about...

After dominating last year’s Oscars with “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” Fox Searchlight is right back at it with “The Favourite,” which has earned the largest per screen average in nearly two years.

Released on four screens in New York and Los Angeles, Yorgos Lanthimos’ dark, 18th century satire grossed an estimated $420,000 for a per screen average (PSA) of $105,500. Not only did it blow by the previous 2018 best average of $89,903 set by “Suspiria,” it also topped 2017’s best PSA, which was set by “Call Me by Your Name” with $103,233.

To find a higher average, you have to go back to “La La Land” in December 2016, when it earned a $176,221 PSA from its five-screen release.

Also Read: Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell Get a Visitor From Hell in New 'Killing of a Sacred Deer' Trailer (Video)

When ranked among all of Searchlight’s releases, “The Favourite” currently ranks third and,...

There’s a remarkable moment early on in The Favourite, the spiky palace-intrigue comedy from the Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (and begins hitting theaters on November 23rd). It’s the early 18th century in England, and there’s a festive ball taking place at the court of Queen Anne. Revelers gather in lines, bowing and curtsying in their period-appropriate finery as they prepare to dance — the same scene we’ve witnessed dozens of times in stiff, stuffy costume dramas. Then, inexplicably, a few of the elite (including Anne’s secret lover Sarah Churchill,...

Emma Stone took home her first Oscar just two seasons ago, for Best Actress for “La La Land” (2016), and she might soon find herself not only with a bookend statuette but in a very exclusive group. Back in the running with a supporting campaign for “The Favourite,” Stone could become the seventh woman to win in lead and supporting.

The first six to accomplish this are:

1. Helen Hayes, Best Actress for “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” (1931/32) and Best Supporting Actress for “Airport” (1970)

2. Ingrid Bergman, Best Actress for “Gaslight” (1944) and “Anastasia” (1956), and Best Supporting Actress for “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974)

3. Maggie Smith, Best Actress for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” (1969) and Best Supporting Actress for “California Suite” (1978)

4. Meryl Streep, Best Supporting Actress for “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), and Best Actress for “Sophie’s Choice” (1982) and “The Iron Lady” (2011)

5. Jessica Lange, Best Supporting Actress for “Tootsie” (1982) and Best Actress for “Blue Sky” (1994)

6. Cate Blanchett,...

Thirteen years ago, Amy Adams received her first Oscar nomination, in Best Supporting Actress, for her breakthrough turn in “Junebug.” She lost the award to Rachel Weisz (“The Constant Gardener”), but Adams can exact her revenge this season in a rematch in the same exact category.

Both actresses are back in contention in supporting for their performances as, coincidentally, historical political figures. Adams plays former Second Lady Lynne Cheney in “Vice” opposite her “American Hustle” (2013) and “The Fighter” (2010) co-star Christian Bale as Dick Cheney. Weisz — whose surname, of course, is pronounced like “vice” — plays Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough in “The Favourite,” the right-hand woman of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) who deftly wielded her influence over the monarch’s decision-making.

Adams is currently in second place in our combined odds to win Best Supporting Actress, behind Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”), while Weisz is in fifth, also trailing...

The following essay was produced as part of the 2018 Nyff Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring film critics that took place during the 56th edition of the New York Film Festival.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest feature “The Favourite” is a delicious and biting look at the intrigue of the British Court during Queen Anne’s reign, and the fight between Sarah Churchill and Abigail Masham for her favour. The dryly funny film centers on a trio of women navigating their place in a power-driven world, and the film follows its central characters as they find increasingly absurd and inventive ways to explore and subvert the gender roles of the time.

Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) functions as both the literal and symbolic center of the power the other two women covet. What Sarah (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail (Emma Stone) are actually fighting for as they jostle for her favour is in fact...

Yorgos Lanthimos’ films are weird, but it turns out Yorgos Lanthimos’ auditions are even weirder. The lauded Greek director recently brought his latest feature, “The Favourite,” to the opening night of the 56th New York Film Festival, and cast members Emma Stone and Nicholas Hoult teased some of their unusual auditions during their Nyff press conference (via USA Today).

“I auditioned for Yorgos, he had me pant like I was giving birth throughout the lines,” Stone said. “I think he just does this to everyone.”

“The Favourite” stars Stone as Abigail Masham, a new arrival to the court of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) in the 18th century. Abigail ascends the ranks to become one of the Queen’s most trusted advisors, which creates a rivalry between herself and the Queen’s other beloved advisor, Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz). The fact that Stone was asked to pant like she was giving...

“Humor in general is something I can’t get away from, no matter what the material is,” said Yorgos Lanthimos about his latest film “The Favourite.” It premiered on September 28 as the opening night selection at the New York Film Festival, but it screened for press and industry that morning, when Lanthimos was on hand to discuss it along with writer Tony McNamara, costume designer Sandy Powell and actors Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, Nicholas Hoult and Joe Alwyn. Watch Lanthimos discuss his inspiration for the film above.

“The Favourite” tells the story of Queen Anne (Colman) and the two women jockeying for position to be her most trusted and powerful advisor: Sarah Churchill (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail Masham (Stone). In terms of its subject matter it’s definitely a change of pace from Lanthimos’s previous contemporary films “Dogtooth” (2009), “The Lobster” (2015) and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (2017), but it...

Oscar winning actress Rachel Weisz and RadicalMedia founder Jon Kamen will receive the actress and industry tributes, respectively, at this year's Gotham Independent Film Awards.

Weisz will next be seen in Fox Searchlight's awards contender The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and co-starring Olivia Colman and Emma Stone. The royal period drama focuses on the palace political struggles between Queen Anne (Colman) and her two confidantes Sarah Churchill (Weisz) and Abigail Hill (Stone).

Chairman and CEO of RadicalMedia, Kamen has created one of the leading generators of premium content in TV, film, graphic and interactive design, with more than ...

Oscar winning actress Rachel Weisz and RadicalMedia founder Jon Kamen will receive the actress and industry tributes, respectively, at this year's Gotham Independent Film Awards.

Weisz will next be seen in Fox Searchlight's awards contender The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, and co-starring Olivia Colman and Emma Stone. The royal period drama focuses on the palace political struggles between Queen Anne (Colman) and her two confidantes Sarah Churchill (Weisz) and Abigail Hill (Stone).

Chairman and CEO of RadicalMedia, Kamen has created one of the leading generators of premium content in TV, film, graphic and interactive design, with more than ...

“Are you going to rape me or seduce me?” “I am gentleman.” “Rape then.” With clear-cut, witty dialogues such as this one—performed by the fantastic cast in a shrewd, straight-forward and incredibly speedy way—Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest, The Favourite, for many a viewer was their favorite of this year’s Venice competition, on both sides: the Lanthimos-fans as well as -sceptics. This was not surprising, given the film’s high entertainment impact as well as its major momentum. In the end, it got the Grand Jury Prize, but would certainly have deserved a Golden Lion, because this period drama set in the early 18th century is equally splendid in its precise visual composition and breathless editing as it is in the handling of an unsurpassable rhetorical verve. A queer Queen Anne is the main (sulkily ailing) protagonist, with rivaling duo (cousins) of Sarah Churchill (a.k.a. Lady Marlborough...

British star honoured for her role as Queen Anne in Yorgos Lanthimos’s comedy The Favourite

Olivia Colman has been named best actress at the Venice film festival for her role as a frail and volatile Queen Anne in the quirky period comedy The Favourite. Her performance has been described as showing “career-best form”. The film’s Greek director, Yorgos Lanthimos, also cast Colman in his first English-language film, The Lobster, a black comedy, for which she won best supporting actress at the British Independent film awards for her role as the hotel manager.

In The Favourite, Colman stars opposite Rachel Weisz, who plays her close friend Sarah Churchill, who has to put up with the queen’s mercurial temper, and Emma Stone as Sarah’s cousin Abigail. The film also won the grand jury prize, the festival’s second-most prestigious.

Of all the movies to play at both the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals last week, The Favourite seems like one of biggest ones to watch out for, awards wise. With a New York Film Festival bow on the horizon, the buzz for this new Yorgos Lanthimos tale should sustain well into the fall. Voters managed to cite The Lobster a few years back (as well as Dogtooth before that in Best Foreign Language Feature), so while they stayed away from The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Favourite is about as Oscar friendly as it gets. To further the good word of mouth, a new Trailer has dropped. You’ll be able to get a glimpse at the end of the piece, in addition to some brief speculation about how well it could do with the Academy. Once again, the film is a period piece comedy, as presumably only Lanthimos could tell.

Sneak Peek new footage, plus images from the historical, dramatic feature "The Favourite", directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, from an original screenplay by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, starring Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, James Smith, and Mark Gatiss, opening November 23, 2018:

"...the close relationship between 'Queen Anne' (Colman) and 'Sarah Churchill' (Weisz) is threatened by the arrival of Sarah's cousin, 'Abigail Masham' (Stone), resulting in a bitter rivalry to be the Queen's favorite..."

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Favourite"...

Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone go head-to-head, vying to be Queen Anne’s favorite in a new trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite.”

In the trailer, the close relationship between Queen Anne (Colman) and Sarah Churchill (Weisz) is threatened when Sarah’s cousin, Abigail Masham (Stone), stops by and asks for a job. A bitter rivalry between the two relatives start.

Nicholas Hoult, Joe Alwyn, Mark Gatiss, James Smith and Jenny Rainsford also star in the drama directed by Lanthimos, whose last two films were “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Lobster,” the latter of which also starred Weisz.

Also Read: 'The Favourite' Film Review: Emma Stone Plays an 18th Century Eve Harrington in a Twisted Historical Farce

“The Favourite” had its world premiere at the 75th Venice Film Festival on Aug. 30 and is scheduled for release on Nov. 23.

Producers are Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Lanthimos,...

Fox Searchlight introduced its Oscar slate on a strong note with the premieres of “The Favourite,” “The Old Man and the Gun,” and “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” at Venice and Telluride, but the former is easily its biggest contender in the upcoming awards season. The Yorgos Lanthimos-directed royal drama has drawn rave reviews from its festival screenings, especially for its three central performances from Olivia Colman, Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz.

“The Favourite,” written by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara (it’s Lanthimos’ first directorial effort not from a script he wrote or co-wrote), centers around the wicked rivalry between Sarah Churchill (Weisz) and her cousin, Abigail Masham (Stone), to become the trusted adviser to Queen Anne (Colman). IndieWire’s Michael Nordine hailed the film as Lanthimos’ “crowning achievement” in his A- review out of Venice.

Lanthimos has been on the rise in the U.S. following “The Lobster,...

Fox Searchlight has unveiled the first trailer for British historical drama “The Favourite,” starring Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, and Rachel Weisz.

Yorgos Lanthimos directs from a script by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara about the bitter battle between cousins to be the court favorite during the reign of Queen Anne in the early 18th century. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Aug. 30.

Colman plays the monarch. Stone portrays Baroness Abigail Masham and Weisz plays Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. “The Favourite” will be the opening night film at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 28. Fox Searchlight has positioned it for an awards season run with an Nov. 23 opening in the United States.

Owen Gleiberman gave the film a strong review for Variety: “It’s a perfectly cut diamond of a movie — a finely executed, coldly entertaining entry in the genre of savage misanthropic baroque costume drama.

In the films of Yorgos Lanthimos, sex, love, friendship and familial duty all exist only in their relation to the power they give people over each other. So while “The Favourite” stands apart from his best-known films by being a period piece, as well as his major feature that he did not write or co-write, it very much fits the intimate jockeying and gamesmanship on display in his earlier work.

Written by first-timer Deborah Davis and Aussie TV writer Tony McNamara, “The Favourite” plays like “All About Eve” as filtered through “The Draughtman’s Contract,” where women in bustles and corsets hopelessly outmaneuver men in wigs and breeches, and where everyone from the servants to the queen herself is playing the game and manipulating others to get what they want.

The queen in question is Queen Anne (Olivia Colman), ensconced in the estate of her lifelong friend Sarah Churchill, Duchess...

Yorgos Lanthimos, whose latest film, “The Favourite,” is world premiering Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, spoke in favor of the #MeToo movement and noted that his new costume drama focuses “on three female characters and portrays them as human beings.”

“Most times, women are seen through the male gaze, so they are often shown as housewives, girlfriends or objects of desire,” Lanthimos said at the news conference in Venice for “The Favourite,” flanked by two of the three lead actresses, Emma Stone and Olivia Colman. Although the film was conceived many years before #MeToo burst on the scene, “our contribution is to show women as complex, wonderful…human beings.”

Colman, who is currently playing Queen Elizabeth II in the third and fourth seasons of Netflix’s hit drama “The Queen,” portrays Queen Anne in “The Favourite.” Although she spoke little about the role, she said twice how much she...

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has unveiled all 30 films premiering as part of the Main Slate of the 56th New York Film Festival, which kicks off September 28 and runs through October 14. Following the announcements of Opening Night being Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma as Centerpiece, and Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate closing the festival, this year’s slate also includes new films from Claire Denis, Barry Jenkins, Alex Ross Perry, the Coens, Lee Chang-dong, Jean-Luc Godard, Olivier Assayas, Bi Gan, Christian Petzold, Tamara Jenkins, Paul Dano, plus a pair of Hong Sangsoo features, and much more.

“Francis Ford Coppola said that the cinema would become a real art form only when the tools of moviemaking became as inexpensive as paints, brushes, and canvases. That has come to pass, but at the same time it’s become increasingly tough to do serious work that...

I think I spoke it into existence! After mentioning yesterday how it was unique that the New York Film Festival had kicked off with a Centerpiece Selection announcement, the powers that be came right back with something yes. Yes, yesterday afternoon, the next shot across the bow was fired when Nyff went and announced that Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite would be its Opening Night Selection for 2018. This high profile spot announces the newest Lanthimos movie as perhaps his most overt Academy Award contender yet. The slot rarely goes to something that isn’t at least potentially a player. So, if you’re a fan of his, this is incredibly exciting news to take in. The film is a period piece comedy, as presumably only Lanthimos could tell. The Nyff Press Release states the following: “In Yorgos Lanthimos’s wildly intricate and very darkly funny new film, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess...

The 2018 New York Film Festival has announced it will open with Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” starring Emma Stone, Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Colman. Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the historical drama will kick off the 56th edition of the festival at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on Friday, September 28.

“The Favourite” marks Lanthimos’ return to Nyff following “The Lobster” in 2015. The director’s “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” played Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festival last year. His latest stars Weisz as Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough and Emma Stone as servant Abigail Hill, two women who engage in a sexually-charged fight to the death for the position of Queen Anne’s advisor during the War of the Spanish Succession. Colman plays the royal queen after working with Lanthimos on “The Lobster.”

Read More: Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Roma’ Selected as 2018 Nyff Centerpiece Screening,...

Yorgos Lanthimos’ “The Favourite,” a historical drama set during the reign of Queen Anne, will kick off the 56th New York Film Festival. The Fox Searchlight title will make its New York debut (careful wording that suggests the film will premiere at another North American festival such as Telluride.) It is already expected to screen in Venice.

“The Favourite” follows the court wranglings of Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz) and her servant Abigail Hill (Emma Stone) as they jockey for position with Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). Lanthimos has an off-beat kind of humor and an avant-garde edge, previously highlighted in films such as “The Lobster” and “Killing of a Sacred Deer.” “The Favourite” is unlikely to be a typically staid costume drama.

“’The Favourite’ is a lot of things at once, each of them perfectly meshed: a historical epic; a visual feast; a wild, wild ride; a...