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Cinema is a profound language of emotion and storytelling; few understand this as deeply as Denis Villeneuve. His curated selections for the Criterion Collection reveal a director’s intimate connection with transformative filmmaking. These choices span decades and continents, showcasing films that challenge narrative conventions, explore human complexity, and push artistic boundaries. Villeneuve’s picks are not mere recommendations but a masterclass in cinematic appreciation—each film is a testament to storytelling’s power to illuminate the human experience.

1. Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski)

Kieślowski’s masterpiece represents cinematic poetry in motion. Denis Villeneuve is captivated by its meticulous artistic synthesis—the delicate interplay between visual composition, emotional narrative, and musical score. The film explores grief through a devastatingly intimate lens, tracking a woman’s journey of loss and eventual emotional reconstruction. Its visual language transcends traditional storytelling, creating a symphonic experience that moves viewers at a profound, almost cellular level.

Storyboards by more than 50 famed filmmakers and animators including Martin Scorsese, Hayao Miyazaki, Federico Fellini, Steven Spielberg, Wes Anderson, and Alfred Hitchcock are set to go on display in an exhibition organised by Italy’s Prada Foundation.

The show, titled “A Kind of Language: Storyboards and Other Renderings for Cinema,” will kick off Jan. 30 in Milan at the Prada Foundation’s Osservatorio outpost and then travel to Prada’s Rong Zhai space dedicated to cultural activities in Shanghai in Nov. 2025.

Prada Foundation “Storyboards” exhibit – which comprises more than eight hundred mood boards, drawings, sketches and other items created between the late 1920s and 2024 – is curated by U.S. academic Melissa Harris, who is editor-at-large of Aperture Foundation. The show is designed to create an immersive experience by mimicking the working environment of a storyboard artist with drafting tables and an open layout.

“For many, storyboarding is an integral part of...

Horror in 2024 proved that the genre thrives on reinvention, delivering a lineup as daring as it was unsettling. While the year saw its share of sequels and prequels, what stood out were films that reimagined old tropes with fresh perspectives. From slashers infused with arthouse aesthetics to nuns with evil pregnancies, horror expanded its boundaries. Themes of bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom resonated strongly, reflecting societal anxieties in the wake of seismic legal changes, while other films boldly tackled aliens, vampires, fanatics, and class disparity. The year wasn’t without its disappointments, but when horror soared, it truly transcended. Cinephiles flocked to both indie gems and boundary-pushing studio fare, underscoring a collective appetite for narratives that terrify and provoke. So let us take a look at the ten standout English-language horror movies of 2024—movies that not only chilled us to the bone but also made us think.

10. It’s What’s Inside

“It’s What’s Inside,...

As a film critic who’s spent countless hours analyzing how cultural movements shape our media landscape, I find the emergence of British boybands in the early ’90s particularly interesting. The British boyband trend started as a direct response to America’s New Kids on the Block, but with a unique British twist that would change pop music worldwide, much like the French New Wave’s reaction to Hollywood norms.

The British culture in the early ’90s was ready for change. As poll tax riots rocked the streets and Thatcherism waned, savvy music producers noticed a gap in the market. American groups like NKotB seemed distant and untouchable, while British managers wanted to create something more relatable and local. It was similar to how Ken Loach made realistic movies about everyday life in Britain. These producers wanted to make pop music feel true to working-class experiences.

The formation process itself...

Let’s start with Robert Altman’s 1992 “The Player” and its opening frenetic camera panning sequence: During that hilarious, farcical rapid-fire parade of studio-insider-wannabe sights and sounds, we see a quick pitch to make a film that is deemed as “Out of Africa meets Pretty Woman.” Over three decades later, we’ve actually witnessed a misguided facsimile of “Mean Streets” meets “Pretty Woman.”

In 2024’s “Anora,” writer/director Sean Baker’s presumed intentions fall short, with this latest installment in a body of work that seems to be very much of a tightly circumscribed acquired taste. His indie repertoire follows our marginalized (some might deem low-propensity voter type) ne’er-do-wells, who collectively appear nomadic and vulgar, but occasionally have their quiet interludes that can generate a stylish offset. With an affinity for sex workers and various car tricks, not just limited to front-seat romps and malodorous puking, Baker provides us...

Over the years we have had so many metacinema outings that defined and redefined glorious ages of film-making across industries. Be it Federico Fellini’s “81/2,” Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s “Khamosh,” Zoya Akhtar’s “Luck By Chance,” K.G. George’s “Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback,” or even Rosshan Andrrews’ “Udayananu Tharam” – movies that go meta has always commemorated the legacy of cinema as we know it. The tropes of a ‘Film-within-a-film’, often termed meta cinema brims with nostalgia and more often than not stand as everlasting love letters to bygone cinema’s glory. The latest entry to this list is Jofin T. Chacko’s sophomore directorial, “Rekhachithram” (2025).

Cinematically reminiscent of Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1985 thriller “Khamosh,” “Rekhachithram” is a mystery thriller that focuses on a junior artist’s murder on the sets of the 1985 Bharathan film “Kaathodu Kaathoram” starring Mammootty. But here’s the catch – the investigation takes place 40 years later...

“I feel like this will all close in on me and I’ll disappear, which wouldn’t be such a bad fate, actually,” said “Emilia Pérez” writer/director Jacques Audiard as he surveyed the contents of the Criterion Closet.

The French filmmaker has been on a hot streak lately with his gonzo crime musical sweeping the European Film Awards last month and this month earning Outstanding Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes, as well as Outstanding Motion Picture – Non-English Language, Outstanding Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña, and Outstanding Original Song for “El Mal.” To celebrate these wins and potential Oscar fortune, Audiard took a brief trip off the red carpet to Criterion’s offices in New York City, where he selected a bagful of cinema’s finest, including Fritz Lang’s expressionistic serial-killer thriller starring Peter Lorre, “M.”

“For me, Lang is synonymous with silent films, even...

Writer-director Tommaso Santambrogio’s Oceans Are the Real Continents follows three sets of characters living in the Cuban town of San Antonio de los Baños, located approximately 25 miles south of Havana. Puppeteer Edith (Edith Ibarra) and theater teacher Alex’s (Alexander Diego) marriage is troubled by Edith’s imminent departure for Italy. Fran (Frank Ernesto Lam) and Alain (Alain Alain Alfonso González), best friends on the cusp of puberty, dream of emigrating to play for the Yankees. Milagros (Milagros Llanes Martinez) is an elderly widow who, over the course of the film, rereads letters from a lover who never returned from Operación Carlota, Cuba’s mission in 1975 to support Angolan independence.

In a town set adrift in time, these representatives of three generations unknowingly orbit each other’s lives, united by a proclivity for imagination. Certain scenes in the film, which is shot in black-and-white and takes stylistic cues from...

Martin Scorsese may be revered as one of our greatest living filmmakers, but he has often had to fight tooth and nail to bring his visions to the big screen. This is largely due to the box office. Yes, "Raging Bull," "The King of Comedy," and "Goodfellas" are considered masterpieces, but they were not hits in theatrical release. So when, after being continuously passed over for Academy Award recognition, he set his sights on making his mobbed-up magnum opus "Gangs of New York," just about every studio in town declined to bankroll his dream.

It wasn't like he'd sprung the project on the film industry. Alberto Grimaldi, the renowned Italian producer of classics by Federico Fellini, Sergio Leone, and Bernardo Bertolucci, had taken out an ad announcing the production of the film way back in 1977. But when the New Hollywood revolution died with the bank-breaking failure of Michael Cimino's...

Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2024, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.

It is almost impossible, or so it seems to me, to have a conversation about the films of 2024 without first considering 2014. That year, many of us wondered where cinematic language was headed, especially given our recent experiences: Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color (2013), Michael Haneke’s Amour (2012), and the revolutionary Terrence Malick’s adventure The Tree of Life (2011). What more was there to be said, if anything at all? But then, Paweł Pawlikowski presented Ida, a quiet yet audacious black-and-white, 4:3-ratio, minimalist film, and we thought the possibilities for great cinema were infinite, and that we really could have a masterpiece every year.

Ida, in any case, was and still is, something more than a masterpiece: it’s a classic, and as such, a reminder that good cinema,...

Alain Delon, the legendary French actor, was a central figure in the French golden age of cinema during the 1960s and 70s. Known for his suave, tough-guy persona and striking good looks, Leon appeared in more than 100 movies in his five-decade career. What made Delon so memorable was the unpredictable nature of his performances. From the ruthless assassin he played in Le Samouraï, to the charismatic criminal in Borsalino, Delon especially shone when he showed his seductive side in L'Eclisse and La Piscine. Hiss filmography even includes iconic literary characters, such as Zorro and Tom Ripley.

Delon passed away on August 18th, 2024, at the age of 88. Since then, film scholars, journalists, and fans have reflected on his remarkable body of work and the legacy his powerful performances have left in cinema history. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors of his generation and the rare international star to achieve global acclaim.

Pedro Almodóvar is nobody’s idea of a conventional, throwback director in most ways. But among top international directors over the last 40 years, he stands if not alone but at least above anyone else until now in gaining prominence in the U.S. with subtitled films — without ever making an English-language one.

Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, François Truffaut, all of whom saw consistent success in U.S. arthouses, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, made either just one or no films outside their native languages. From the 1980s, it became common for the most successful European and Latin American directors to pursue projects in English, sometimes never returning to their native tongues. Many others, like Bong Joon Ho, Alfonso Cuarón, and Guillermo del Toro, have leapfrogged to English-language scripts and actors after their initial successes.

Not Almodóvar, until now. With “The Room Next Door” (Sony Pictures Classics), he...

France’s “Emilia Pérez,” Germany’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and Brazil’s “I’m Still Here” have been named to the shortlist in the Oscars’ Best International Feature Film category, retaining their frontrunner status in a race that had fewer high-profile contenders than usual this year.

Other films on the list are Canada’s “Universal Language,” the Czech Republic’s “Waves,” Denmark’s “The Girl With the Needle,” Iceland’s “Touch,” Ireland’s “Kneecap,” Italy’s “Vermiglio,” Latvia’s “Flow,” Norway’s “Armand,” Palestine’s “From Ground Zero,” Senegal’s “Dahomey,” Thailand’s “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies” and the United Kingdom’s “Santosh.”

“Flow” is the only animated film on the list, while “Dahomey” is the only documentary. The Palestinian selection, “From Ground Zero,” is the most unusual of the shortlisted films, consisting of 22 separate short films made over the last year by directors living in Gaza.

That should probably read: one of Federico Fellini's masterpieces. The fact that he followed La Dolce Vita merely a year later with 8 1/2 puts the Italian auteur in a rarefied group of filmmakers who have pulled off a one-two punch of films. 8 1/2 was an early title for the Criterion collection, and it's no wonder it's finally getting a 4K release to update for the physical media connoisseur. One of the best films about filmmaking, it's an arguably somewhat indulgent film, made by a person with a lot of privilege to put to screen his own therapy sessions - but that is a looking at it from a 60+ year distance, while still having almost nothing but respect for one of Europe's, and...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

If you've delved into any American film history over the years, you've no doubt come across the sentiment that the 1970s was the best period for American cinema, bar none. Of course, any claim of opinion is up for debate, but the reasons for historians and critics coming to this conclusion are harder to deny, as pound for pound, the various conditions needed for filmmaking were particularly favorable during that decade. To wit: the collapse of the Hays Code and the institution of the Motion Picture Association of America allowed for a heretofore unprecedented level of uncensored content in American movies. The "studio system" and a reliance on stars to open movies were quickly becoming things of the past, and while corporate conglomerates were now in charge of the major studios (something which has led to our current state of multiplex stagnation in 2024), at this early stage, the suits had...

Although the extent to which the iconically dark-shaded and silver-streaked Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) can truly be accepted as a Federico Fellini surrogate is a source of endlessly inconsequential debate, we tend to take the lightly fictive director at his word when he dismally claims that he had planned to make a truly honest and direct film this time around. 8½ represents the most unceremonious and abrupt transition in the development of Fellini’s cinema from putatively neorealist ideologies to unabashedly oneiric claptraps about the onus of an overly imaginative but waning masculinity—and it is, for all its Freudian bitchery and post-libidinous angst, one of the few personal statements in film utterly unhindered by stretches for social or cosmic relevance.

There are some aphoristic generalizations related to living the creative life, most of them articulated by Guidio’s lean script advisor and logos personification Daumier (Jean Rougeul)—“Destroying is better...

During the vibrant Red Sea Film Festival, actor Omar Miller discussed his experience in Gabriele Salvatores’ new film, “Naples to New York.” This historical drama, influenced by Federico Fellini’s early work, follows the story of two children who become stowaways on a ship bound for America in 1949 and embark on a transformational adventure.

Miller portrays George, an American cook who becomes an important part of the children’s journey. What distinguishes this film is its unique genesis; it is based on a narrative written by Fellini and his partner, Tullio Pinelli, in the 1940s, long before Fellini rose to international prominence as a filmmaker.

“This is one of the few times as an actor where you sign up for one film and end up making another film, but that other film is better than the film you thought you signed up for,” Miller said during an interview at the Deadline Studio in Jeddah.

U.S. actor Omar Benson Miller who is known for roles in “8 Mile,” HBO’s Ballers, and Apple’s “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” stars in Italian immigration-themed drama “Naples to York” by Oscar-winning director Gabriele Salvatores that is having its festival premiere at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival.

Interestingly, Federico Fellini co-wrote this tale of two Neapolitan kids who embark on a ship to New York to escape Italy’s early postwar poverty with his frequent collaborator Tullio Pinelli, a writer on the Italian maestro’s “La Dolce Vita” and “8 1/2,” as well as other titles.

In the film Benson Miller plays the ship’s cook who, during their travels, takes the kids under his wing.

He spoke to Variety about being back in Italy more than a decade after working in Tuscany with Spike Lee on “Miracle at St. Anna”; why this movie, conceived by Fellini,...

Is that a chill in the air? Perhaps your boots are starting to feel colder and damper with each passing day. Maybe your cheeks are turning pink every time you step outside. Whether we like it or not, winter is here, which means it’s the perfect time to avoid the cold and hurry to your nice, warm movie house. With the holidays right around the corner, repertory theaters are stocking up on Christmas classics and seasonal favorites. For those looking for something more traditional than Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” and Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu,” which release December 20 and December 25, respectively, cinemas in New York and Los Angeles have plenty of options for the whole family, as well as more festive adult fare for those looking to spice things up.

Selections this month come from the Metrograph located on the Lower East Side in New York City and Village East by Angelika,...

Sean Baker’s “Anora” continues to take the 2024 film circuit by storm, most recently celebrating at the Gotham Awards with nominations for Best Feature, Best Director, Outstanding Lead Performance, and Outstanding Supporting Performance. Ahead of the award ceremony in New York City on Monday, December 2, we caught up with lead Mikey Madison.

At the end of the film, Madison’s character Ani sheds a single tear in a moment that takes her character’s arc from peak to total devastation. “Well, it wasn’t planned,” she told IndieWire. “We had done multiple takes and Sean really wanted to see tears come out of my left eye. We wanted a single tear to come out of this [left] eye, but they were only coming out of this [right] eye and this [right] eye was laying on Yura’s chest. We just kept filming it until some of them were coming out of my left eye.

“Home” is the theme of the 4th edition of the Red Sea Film Festival as it returns to its original location, but in a sleek custom-built venue, in the recently renovated Al-Balad district in Jeddah, a Unesco World Heritage site.

Kaleem Aftab, the fest’s head of international programming, says that home is a fitting theme for this year’s edition since the festival increasingly serves as a key platform for Africa, Arab and Asian cinema, and its impact is now all-year-round through the work of the Red Sea Film Foundation.

“We’re focusing on what we can achieve as a foundation rather than just as a festival,” he explains, adding that 11 of the 122 films screening at this year’s edition have been developed within the Red Sea eco-system, including the opening film, “The Tale of Daye’s Family,” which is a Saudi Egyptian co-production.

“We are the best place...

Every fall cinephiles in America count down the days until the most important holiday event of the year: the Barnes and Noble Criterion sale. Ever since the Criterion Collection was launched in 1984 with its Laserdisc of Orson Welles‘ “Citizen Kane,” the company’s releases have been embraced by students, filmmakers, and enthusiasts for its “film school in a box” approach to home video. Although Criterion‘s 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD special editions are well worth the expense for their meticulous transfers and abundance of supplementary features, they can get a little pricey — hence the eagerness with which we all await the Barnes and Noble sale, during which every Criterion disc is 50% off.

The savings are particularly helpful when it comes to Criterion’s boxed sets, such as the recently released “CC40,” a mammoth collection of essential titles from the company’s catalog that’s around four hundred dollars cheaper if...

Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee added a prestigious honor Tuesday to his already exceedingly decorated career in the arts. The three-time Oscar winner was presented with the Praemium Imperiale at a black-tie ceremony in Tokyo. Often described as Asia’s version of the Nobel Prize, the award is handed out annually to artists working in various fields. A mark of the prize’s prestige, past honorees in the film and theater category have included true icons of film history, such as Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Jean-Luc Godard, Martin Scorsese and Catherine Deneuve.

“I’d like to think that my career is a never-ending school where I learn about cinema and about myself and about the world. There is no end to that learning,” Lee said during a news conference in Tokyo ahead of the awards ceremony. “As the first person from Taiwan to receive this award, I’m proud and deeply grateful.

Cannes Film Festival general delegate Thierry Frémaux will be heading to Saudi Arabia in December to attend the Red Sea Film Festival to support his new documentary “Lumière! The Adventure Continues,” which takes a deep dive into the origins of cinema.

Frémaux’s sequel to “Lumière! The Adventure Begins,” which premiered at Red Sea’s inaugural edition in 2021, will be screening as part of the event’s International Spectacular sidebar.

Frémaux’s 103-minute sequel doc is comprised of more than 100 immaculately restored short films shot by Louis and Auguste Lumière, and explores more in depth the history of the invention of cinema and early days of celluloid around the world. Frémaux, who besides being boss of Cannes is also director of the Lumière Institute in Lyon, narrates the documentary.

“This film is a vital testament to the foundation of all modern audiovisual content, showcasing the early pioneers who revolutionized visual storytelling,...

Known as the queen of Italian pop, Mina has sold over 150 million records worldwide and remains a music legend who’s been captivating fans since the ’60s. Her new album, Gassa d’Amante, drops on November 22, and its title — named after an essential sailing knot — represents the solid and yet easily untangled nature of love. Just like the knot, the album explores the twists and turns of love in all of its beauty and complexity. At 84, Mina is still going strong, and she’s as iconic as ever.

Mina, born Mina Anna Mazzini, is one of the most adored pop stars in Italy. She is a cult figure who can be compared to Liza Minelli and Bette Midler; a musical diva who is as great a superstar to the Italians as Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift today. Like a 21st century Greta Garbo, she lives in exile in Lugano, Switzerland,...

Anyone who’s seen Anora talks about the home-invasion scene.

The 28- minute thriller sequence, a tour de force worthy of Hitchcock, comes about an hour in. Up until then, Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning movie has been an R-rated version of Pretty Woman. “Basically a romantic comedy, maybe a dirty romantic comedy, but a romantic comedy,” says the American indie auteur.

Anora, or Ani, a 23-year-old stripper living in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, played by Mikey Madison, hooks up with the slightly younger 21-year-old Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn, who has been called the Timothée Chalamet of Russia), the son of a Russian oligarch. What starts as a sex worker/client relationship — after a lap dance, Ivan asks if he can have Ani “exclusively” for a week — turns into something more. A whirlwind romance, involving a week of wild parties, and wilder sex, ends in Vegas, where Ivan, smitten and enticed...

[Editor’s note: The following story contains major spoilers for “Anora.”]

“Anora” ends with a grand gesture, and a moment of gratitude that curdles into despair and possibly hope. And Sean Baker is here to talk how it was done.

The writer/director’s finale, set inside a car as snow falls on Brighton Beach outside it and windshield wipers lull the audience into a kind of trance until Baker and team drop the hammer, is one of the all-time great movie endings. It’s the sort of shattering cut-to-black that leaves you stuck to your seat, an emotional sendoff to what was heretofore a deceptively screwball comedy about a sex worker and exotic dancer, Ani (Mikey Madison), whose “greatest day” leads to a rock-bottom revelation.

Dispatched Russian henchman Igor has carted Ani from Vegas, where she had a whirlwind contract marriage to a party-hopping childish whisp of an oligarch’s son (Mark Eydelshteyn), back to New York. The marriage (“a fraud marriage?...

Critics are possibly simultaneously the best and the worst thing to have ever happened to the world of art and literature. The deconstruction and analysis that goes into a piece of work takes away its creative individuality, instead substituting it with one person’s understanding of the subject.

Blade Runner [Credit: Warner Bros.]

Ridley Scott, one of the best directors Hollywood ever produced, has been unfortunate enough to face such extreme criticism that not only disillusioned him with the profession but made him bitter, reckless, vindictive, and somewhat transparent with his words. After all, a genius auteur who could make such a timeless epic as Blade Runner come alive on the big screen only to hear it being dismissed as ‘unimportant’ would rightfully lose his mind.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner Against the World

Pauline Kael, the most polarizing critic in the history of cinema has brought down the greatest of the greats like Stanley Kubrick,...

An adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s iconic Russian novel “The Master and Margarita” is inching closer to a Western release as it heads to AFM this week.

The feature, directed by Michael Lockshin (“Silver Skates”), was a victim of the sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, despite both Locksin and the film itself being critical of Putin’s authoritarianism.

With the film’s rights now in the clear, Luminosity Pictures have boarded the project as sales agent, launching at AFM.

“The Master and Margarita” stars August Diehl (“Inglourious Basterds”), Claes Bang (“Bad Sisters”), Evgeniy Tsyganov (The Man Who Surprised Everyone”) and Yulia Snigir (“A Good Day to Die Hard”). Lockshin co-wrote the screenplay with Roman Kantor based on Bulgakov’s semi-autobiographical and anti-authoritarian novel, which has sold over 100 million copies internationally and been translated into over 40 languages.

The film, set in the Stalinist Soviet Union of the 1930s,...

Nicolas Cage is one of our most impressive living actors, and a big part of that is because of his intense love of cinema. He's a true student of the craft, with an obsession for older films that has led him to an extensive knowledge of all the medium has to offer. Cage's passion for his projects has led to him becoming the subject of many memes, mostly using his most over-the-top performances, but the man really knows his stuff. So, when Rotten Tomatoes asked Cage for his five favorite films of all time, he came a little over-prepared, offering his top 13 favorite films instead. He said that he simply couldn't narrow it down to five because "there's different movies for different reasons in different lifetimes," which is the most Nicolas Cage thing he could have said.

The actor often looks back to older cinema for inspiration and compares...

The best classic rock songs often took inspiration from unexpected sources. For example, Eagles’ “Hotel California” was supposed to feel like a number of classic movies. The 1970s band Steely Dan also helped inspire the track.

Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ is based on a cult classic movie

During a 2003 interview with The Uncool, Eagles’ Don Henley discussed the main character of “Hotel California.” “We take this guy and make him like a character in The Magus, where every time he walks through a door, there’s a new version of reality,” he said. The Magus was a surreal novel adapted into a cult classic movie in 1968.

Henley discussed some of the song’s other cinematic ambitions. “We wanted to write a song just like it was a movie,” the “Boys of Summer” singer recalled. “This guy is driving across the desert. He’s tired. He’s smokin’. Comes up over a hill,...

In a year in which two of world cinema’s oldest industries, Japan and Italy, have signed a long-awaited co-production treaty, jury members at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) were talking up the importance of both film history and the theatrical experience on the first full day of the festival.

After praising TIFF for its selection of established and emerging Asian filmmakers, Hong Kong actor and jury president Tony Leung Chiu-wai also pointed to the festival’s in-depth programmes of classic movies observing that they play an important role in “introducing Italian directors like [Federico] Fellini and Japanese filmmakers like [Akira] Kurosawa to younger audiences.

“They are not only introducing what is current, but also the vast history of cinema, which is a wonderful opportunity for audiences to learn about the past,” the star of In The Mood For Love and Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings said.

Europe’s largest cosplay get together, Italy’s Lucca Comics and Games returns for its 58th edition over the Halloween weekend, with thousands of fans descending on the medival Tuscan town to celebrate all things geek. From TV shows launched by the top streamers to video, tabletop and role-playing games, comic books and horror movies, Lucca showcases the latest in fandom, paying homage to the pervasive power of pop culture at large.

And that is why “The Butterfly Effect” is the theme of this year’s edition, being held Oct. 30-Nov. 3.

Lucca Comic and Games has over almost 60 years accomplished a fantastic butterfly effect, artistic director Emanuele Vietina tells Variety. It’s become a type of event that’s being embraced by the world, from South Asia to all of Europe and North and South America, he points out. (See separate interview with Vietina). Significantly, this year’s poster is...

The great actress Isabella Rossellini was the face of Lancôme beauty for more than a decade beginning in the early 1980s, but strangely, if you look back, rarely is she the lead in any of her iconic films.

Sometimes a shadow, sometimes on the periphery, a Rossellini character is nonetheless always knowing, from tragic lounge singer Dorothy Vallens in her then-partner David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” to ethereal beauty whisperer Lisle Von Rhuman in Robert Zemeckis’ “Death Becomes Her” and a wealthy Italian widow who dates below her station in David O. Russell’s “Joy.”

In Edward Berger’s papal potboiler “Conclave,” Rossellini has fewer lines than ever — and probably they could fit on one page — as Sister Agnes. Here is a glowering nun who has seen some shit. In the case of Berger’s English-language follow-up to Oscar-winning heavy-hitter “All Quiet on the Western Front,” Agnes is the eyes...

“Anora,” the winner of the 2024 Palme d’Or, is a film that’s all too easy to describe as a star is born moment. The film, a madcap romance between the wealthy son of a Russian oligarch and a Brighton Beach sex worker that channels everything from the screwball comedies of Ernst Lubitsch to the intimate neo-realist dramas of Federico Fellini features a performance from Mikey Madison in the lead role that feels destined to raise the “Better Things” and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” star’s profile immediately.

Beyond its leading lady, “Anora” also feels like it’s destined to be the moment where its director Sean Baker goes from indie darling to award darling. Baker, who made his directorial debut in the year 2000 with the obscure “Four Letter Words,” has slowly risen in stature for years now. After three more features — “Take Out,” “Prince of Broadway,...

“Marcello Mastroianni was known, all around the world, as the Latin lover, the Italian seducer, especially after he starred in La Dolce Vita, Federico Fellini’s masterpiece,” says Fabrizio Corallo, the director of the new documentary Ciao Marcello, Mastroianni l’antidivo. “Mastroianni did not like this image. He didn’t want to be seen as an icon, as a sex symbol. He didn’t care much about his public persona; what did matter to him was his personal life. So, I tried to build an intimate portrait of this unique actor.”

Corallo is a journalist and an expert on the history of Italian cinema. For state broadcaster Rai he has made a number of documentaries about the great personalities of Italian cinema: Dino Risi, Vittorio Gassman, Virna Lisi, Ennio Flaiano and Giuliano Montaldo, among others.

Ciao Marcello, which was co-written with Silvia Scola, the daughter of Italian filmmaker Ettore Scola,...

The films “Anora” directed by Sean Baker and Federico Fellini’s classic “Nights of Cabiria” both focus on sex workers navigating harsh worlds. While made over half a century apart, the films share many similarities in their exploration of hope, relationships, and societal treatment of vulnerable women.

“Anora,” starring Mikey Madison, tells the story of the title character, an exotic dancer in New York City. The film opens in the dressing room of a strip club called Headquarters, setting the scene for Anora’s transactional work. When she meets Ivan, the son of a wealthy Russian businessman, Anora sees a chance to escape her current life. Fellini’s 1957 film “Nights of Cabiria” also centers on a sex worker, portrayed by Giulietta Masina, trying to survive on the streets of Rome.

Both movies examine themes of dreams, romantic fantasies, and power imbalances between social classes and genders. However, they reach different conclusions about maintaining hope.

[Editor’s note: The following essay contains major spoilers for “Anora.”]

Why do men do the things they do to women? Why do they offer affection and hope when all they’re really capable of is self-satisfaction? Why do they prop themselves as something they’re not at the expense of the physical and emotional well-beings of others? This is not to say women aren’t guilty of the same cruelties, but in a world where women continue to be persecuted, having their health, financial livelihoods, education, and more subject to legal control while men walk the Earth freely, seemingly bound by only the Darwinian laws of nature, I think it’s fair to say that one gender is granted a much wider latitude over the other. And why is that so? It was these questions that rattled through my brain as I took in every thrilling high and tragic low of Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or-winning “Anora” and...

Sean Baker’s acclaimed and Oscar-tipped new comedy focuses on a sex worker, a story that led him to consult with those who live and work in that world

In Anora, a wilful young woman engaged in sex work is swept up in a Cinderella story. Anora, or Ani as everyone calls the titular character, who is played with mercurial force by Mikey Madison, cozies up with a rich young brat (Mark Eidelstein), the spoiled son of a Russian oligarch with mob ties. Their whirlwind romance quickly unleashes clock-strikes-midnight chaos across Manhattan, Brighton Beach and Coney Island.

The movie, written and directed by Tangerine and The Florida Project’s Sean Baker, is a deliriously entertaining and moving screwball comedy that takes notes from Preston Sturges and Federico Fellini. Those film-makers, like Baker, have always been hyperaware of class and economics, accepting wholeheartedly that love and romance, with all its joys and tragedy,...

Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Cinema Paradiso” is and will always be cherished by cinephiles. After all, it beautifully captures their deep love for cinema and the art of filmmaking in the most heartfelt way. It shows a child from a small Italian town falling in love with cinema, because of his friendship with a local film projectionist. He gets to watch all kinds of movies and experiences the madness and chaos it entails. “Cinema Paradiso” opens in an era when people exclusively used film reels to make movies. The child protagonist sees the film’s material change from flammable to fire-resistant as the art advances into different eras.

The kid, Toto, grows up witnessing the changes in censorship in cinema and builds a personal connection with both sublime and obscene. Back then, films were integral to the social fabric of a community. So, he learns cinema’s importance as a medium...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. To keep up with our latest features, sign up for the Weekly Edit newsletter and follow us @mubinotebook on Twitter and Instagram.News Kaizen.Kaizen (2024), a documentary about an influencer’s quest to scale Mount Everest, has attracted the ire of other French distributors after mk2 violated the terms of its “exceptional visa,” booking almost double its legal allowance of screenings before releasing the film on YouTube the next day. One industry professional compared the company to “guys in hoodies with machine guns robbing a bank.”Total Film, the British monthly, has ceased print publication after 356 issues and 27 years.The United Kingdom has passed into law an Independent Film Tax Credit, part of a large investment in the culture industry by the new Labour government. FESTIVALSBeing John Smith.In an open letter, filmmakers and workers call on the New York...

Andrea Segre’s The Great Ambition, the opening film of the Rome Film Festival, tells the story of how the Italian Communist Party came close to governing Italy.

It focuses on Italian politician Enrico Berlinguer, who ran the Communist Party when it reached its peak of popularity in the 1970s. His great ambition was to achieve a democratic path to communism, which meant severing his Party’s ties with Moscow.

Leading the film as Berlinguer is Elio Germano, winner of the best actor prize at the 2020 Berlinale for Hidden Away and at Cannes in 2010 for Our Life. The Great Ambition...

Zoe Saldaña has worked with several of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors over the years, including James Cameron and J.J. Abrams, but one in particular “restored her faith” in the industry: Steven Spielberg.

Saldaña featured in Spielberg’s 2004 comedy-drama “The Terminal” alongside Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, which came right after her first big-budget role in “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” Saldaña has been open about her experience on the set of “Pirates” not being the best, and during a Screen Talk at the BFI London Film Festival on Saturday, she said it almost caused her to “tip overboard.”

“I knew with that experience the kind of people that I wanted to work with,” Saldaña said of “Pirates.” “The crew and the cast, they’re 99% of the time super marvelous. But if the studio and the producers and the director, they’re not leading with kindness and awareness and consideration,...

Francis Ford Coppola is not alone in worrying that America could “have an emperor in a few months.”

Martin Scorsese has now weighed in on the 2024 U.S. presidential election, while in Turin accepting the Stella della Mole award at the Italian city’s prestigious Museum of Cinema. And needless to say, he is concerned.

“When we filmed ‘Gangs of New York’ at Cinecittà, we depicted a violent, bloody 19th century America, with a brutal character — Bill the Butcher, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. People like him are showing up again. We don’t know what’s going to happen in a few weeks,” Scorsese said at a press conference at museum October 7. “Democracy could continue, or this experiment could end.”

William Poole, a.k.a. Bill the Butcher, was a real-life gang leader in mid-19th century New York City who advocated for violence against immigrants and advanced anti-Catholic views in the country.

When news broke that Martin Scorsese’s next two planned films — a Frank Sinatra biopic and a religious drama, “The Life of Jesus” — were being postponed, unfounded rumors started swirling that the great filmmaker was retiring. After all, Scorsese is nearly 82 years old, and may be ready to slow down after working nonstop for over 50 years.

But during an appearance in Turin, Italy on Monday night, Scorsese put those rumors to rest. “I’m not saying goodbye to cinema at all,” he said, per The Hollywood Reporter, during a press conference at the Museum of Cinema, where he’s set to receive the museum’s Stella della Mole award. “I still have more films to make, and I hope God gives me the strength to make them.”

Last month, Variety reported that production on the two films, which were expected to shoot back-to-back starting this fall, had stalled. Scorsese is...

When rumors circulated that his planned films on Frank Sinatra and Jesus have been postponed, there was speculation that Martin Scorsese might retire. The legendary director has now put those rumors to rest: “I’m not saying goodbye to cinema at all,” he said during a press conference Monday at the Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy. “I still have more films to make, and I hope God gives me the strength to make them.”

Scorsese is in Turin to receive the Museum of Cinema’s prestigious Stella della Mole award Monday night. Friends like Willem Dafoe, Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore and production designer Dante Ferretti will be on hand to honor him.

During a freewheeling conversation with journalists in Turin, Scorsese also shared his thoughts on the upcoming U.S. elections.

“When we filmed Gangs of New York at Cinecittà, we depicted a violent, bloody 19th century America, with...

Grindhouse Releasing’s brand new 4K restoration of the Lucio Fulci horror classic The Beyond is opening in New York City at the IFC Center on October 25, and Bloody Disgusting is excited to debut the release’s official poster courtesy of Italian legend Emanuele Taglietti.

Check out the official poster below and read on for everything you need to know!

Grindhouse Releasing has been working on this new 4K restoration of the Lucio Fulci horror classic since 2016, and it was made using the original Techniscope camera negative.

Their new 4K restoration of The Beyond premiered at this year’s Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans, where the movie was filmed, and is now touring select North American theaters in advance of the 4K Uhd release. The Canadian premiere is October 23 at the Revue Cinema in Toronto.

Grindhouse is also giving away ‘Eerie Eyeballs’ in select cities, as they did back...

Spanish actress and director Paz Vega (Spanglish, Sex and Lucia, Rambo: Last Blood, The Oa, Netflix heist drama Kaleidoscope), who wrote and stepped behind the camera for her directorial debut Rita, which world premiered during the 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival this summer, enjoys writing and directing, adding another layer to her creative endeavors. And she thinks more actors should feel empowered to direct.

She made the comments during a Tuesday keynote interview at the Iberseries & Platino Industria conference and market in Madrid that was titled “Changing Roles: Paz Vega and Her Transition From the Art of Acting to the Art of Directing.” She recently said in a THR interview that Billy Wilder, Francis Ford Coppola, and Federico Fellini were among her role models.

Vega wrote, directed and executive produced Rita and also plays a small part in it. “In some way, I had the idea to become...

Though the Criterion Collection may be taking their beloved closet on the road to celebrate their 40th anniversary, only the lucky few have been able to step foot in the actual hallowed space. Now, renaissance man Bill Hader can say he’s done so twice. The actor, writer, and director behind the hit HBO series “Barry” first entered the Criterion Closet in 2011. Dressed for the occasion with an orange shirt sporting the Kaibyō from the poster for the 1977 Japanese horror film “House,” Hader drew selections such as Federico Fellini’s “Amarcord” and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s grotesque “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom,” which he referred to at the time as “a great date movie.”

Referencing this pick in his latest video, Hader displayed “Salò” once again and said, “It is not a good date movie. Just want to clear that up.”

After making a few jokes at the expense...

One of the most common questions film critics receive is "What's your favorite movie?" And any critic will tell you that it's a difficult question to answer. Since critics speak to their taste, and gauge a film's quality based on their reaction to it, shouldn't the film they consider the best of all time be their favorite? In a 2012 essay on his website, Ebert rolled the question around in his mind, musing that his old reviewing partner, Gene Siskel, used to say that "Citizen Kane" is the "official" answer to that question. After all, many critics consider it to be the best movie ever made, so surely that means it is their favorite, right?

Of course, we all know that taste doesn't operate that way. A film can be your favorite for any number of reasons. You might consider, say, "Ikiru" to be the best movie ever made, but it...