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With all due respect to clean, uplifting, straightforwardly sweeping romances, sometimes there's nothing better than a movie that understands love's power of destruction. There's something timelessly alluring about a romance tale that veers into dark, untold places -- whether by exploring the secret underside of the romance itself, arriving at the romance through a twisty and wretched path, letting the romance explode into violent catharsis (or lack thereof), or seeing what happens when the romance brushes up against the brutality of the external world.

Below, you'll find a ranking of 15 great dark romance movies from every era of film history that do all that, telling love stories too somber, bloody, turbulent, or otherwise twisted to inspire anyone's wedding vows -- unless the couple in question is into some real off-the-cuff stuff. From a defiant medieval life partnership to a dangerous mid-20th-century Californian obsession, these are the best dark romance movies of all time.

Netflix has struck a creative partnership with multi-hyphenate Lena Dunham (Girls) and her production company Good Thing Going “to develop and create serialized first-look projects for Netflix.” The news comes as the creator is ready to return to the small screen with Netflix rom-com series Too Much this year, which she discussed during a Netflix event in London on Wednesday evening.

The show, on which Dunham functions as creator, writer, director and executive producer, marks her first scripted comedy series with Netflix and predates the newly unveiled partnership.

Before getting down to Netflix business at the London event, Scottish radio DJ and TV host Edith Bowman asked if due to the time she has spent in the U.K., Dunham could already be considered an honorary Brit. “I just got my five-year visa,” the creator shared, earning applause. “It did come with the damehood,” she then quipped.

Of the deal,...

David Lynch has been named the recipient of the Writers Guild of America West’s 2025 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement, the organization announced on Wednesday.

According to the WGA, the late filmmaker behind “Eraserhead,” “The Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet,” “Wild at Heart,” “Mulholland Drive” and co-creator of “Twin Peaks” accepted the award in late 2024, weeks before his death on Jan. 16.

“Writer-director David Lynch’s uncompromising vision pushed the boundaries of filmmaking,” Wgaw president Meredith Stiehm said. “We are proud to honor him and his legacy.”

The award will be presented by Lynch’s frequent collaborator, actor Kyle MacLachlan, at the 77th annual WGA Awards on Feb. 15.

The Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement is presented to members who have “advanced the literature of motion pictures and made outstanding contributions to the profession of the screenwriter.”

Past Screen Laurel Award recipients include Walter Hill, Charlie Kaufman, Nancy Meyers, James L. Brooks, Elaine May,...

Oh, Hi! starts out like an everyday romantic comedy: Two gorgeous young 20somethings go on a romantic trip to upstate New York. Iris (Molly Gordon) is bubbly and fun, while her boyfriend Isaac (Logan Lerman) is more sensitive and reserved. There’s a small sign of trouble when the two stop by a strawberry stand and the woman running it hits on Isaac. Here we see the first flickers of Iris’ insecurity and Isaac’s general flirtiness.

But by the time the couple arrives at the picturesque farmhouse, everything is like a dream. The house is large and beautiful — the perfect venue to bring their relationship to the next level. They make out in the nearby creek, Isaac goes down on Iris on the couch, and they share a delicious meal outside at night under warm lights. Later, they sneak into the bedroom of their absent hosts, take some chain restraints from their closet,...

Exclusive: Sean Baker’s latest Anora has won Best Picture at this year’s Online Film Critics Society Awards. Scroll down for the full list of winners.

Anora also won Best Actress for star Mikey Madison and Best Screenplay while Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance also took home three awards for Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Margaret Qualley alongside a Technical Achievement Award for Makeup/Hairstyling.

Comprised of nearly 300 voting members from around the world, the Online Film Critics Society was founded in 1997. Members include writers from outlets such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Slant, Paste Magazine, AARP, and Sight & Sound.

In addition to the 2024 top film honors, the Online Film Critics Society hands out Special Achievement and Lifetime Achievement Awards. This year the body honors Ava DuVernay with a Special Achievement Award for her “brilliant work and for supporting a new generation of female filmmakers.” This year...

This is an excerpt of a piece published in Issue 6 of Notebook magazine as part of a broader exploration of the cinema of youth. The magazine is available via direct subscription or in select stores around the world.The Heartbreak KidIllustrations by Emi Ueoka.The leanest, loveliest ending. In a movie filled with good lines—“There’s no insincerity in those potatoes. There’s no deceit in the cauliflower”—Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid, written by Neil Simon, finishes honestly, undisguised and plain. Charles Grodin, who plays Lenny Cantrow, a sports equipment salesman stewing with self-starter anxieties and consequently sabotaging his life (and love life) and the lives of others, is sitting on a couch at his own wedding reception, having a conversation with a ten-year-old guest. In a room full of adults, champagne, the future, Lenny’s choice to seek refuge is unadorned and innocent, even if our anti-hero is far from innocent,...

Adrien Brody, Sean Baker, Brady Corbet, and Jim Jarmusch were among the winners and presenters at Wednesday’s New York Film Critics Circle dinner to offer words of support and sympathy to the thousands of Los Angeles residents impacted by this week’s deadly wildfires.

Brody, who won Best Actor for his acclaimed performance in The Brutalist, was overcome with emotion as he accepted the honor.

“To accept something like this when there’s so much suffering in the world. My heart goes out to all the families and the animals and our colleagues,” Brody said while fighting back emotion.“Most of the homes on the west side, the beach side of the [Pacific Coast Highway], are gone. From the Palisades on, this is our community. So I just want to thank and commend the bravery of the first responders, their sacrifices, and their meaningful work, which deserves our recognition tonight.”

A visibly...

Entering to a standing ovation at a Friday-night screening of Mikey and Nicky at New York’s Metrograph on December 6, Elaine May looked out at the full house. “I was told this entire audience is made up of editors,” she said. And then, mock-anticipating their first question, she declared “Steenbeck,” name-checking the flatbed editing table on which her 1976 film was cut. The event was organized by the American Cinema Editors as part of their ongoing Filmcraft series at the Lower East Side Theater, and May was accompanied onstage by two editors; series moderator Phillip Schopper, and Jeffrey Wolf, who […]

The post “Don’t Expect to Like ‘Em:” The Making of Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Entering to a standing ovation at a Friday-night screening of Mikey and Nicky at New York’s Metrograph on December 6, Elaine May looked out at the full house. “I was told this entire audience is made up of editors,” she said. And then, mock-anticipating their first question, she declared “Steenbeck,” name-checking the flatbed editing table on which her 1976 film was cut. The event was organized by the American Cinema Editors as part of their ongoing Filmcraft series at the Lower East Side Theater, and May was accompanied onstage by two editors; series moderator Phillip Schopper, and Jeffrey Wolf, who […]

The post “Don’t Expect to Like ‘Em:” The Making of Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Hours before I place my trust in a rush-hour F train departing from Herald Square just 19 days before Christmas, I am speaking with scholar and filmmaker Jerry Carlson about David Bordwell and Orson Welles’ Filming Othello. Nominally a chronicle of Welles’ time adapting Shakespeare’s play, the documentary’s stream of inconsistencies and outright fibs linger with the late critic. Carlson pauses in his recollection and conjures Bordwell’s exclamation post-screening: “You can’t trust a thing this man says!”

Welles’ instinct for storytelling was matched only by his affection for lying. I suspect he assumed these two phenomena were basically linked, two sides of the same coin pulled from an ear. You could do worse than have Welles on the brain on a night when Elaine May would appear in front of a theater audience. Would she appear? We were told she would, following a 6:00 Pm screening of her sour,...

Actress, comedian, writer, and director Elaine May, 92, does not do interviews; she rarely makes public appearances. So when she agreed to a post-screening Q&a as part of Metrograph‘s American Cinema Editors Presents series, it became a sold-out event that attracted New York’s biggest cinephiles; for them, May is the most elusive member in the pantheon of greatest living filmmakers.

After a screening of “Mikey and Nicky,” the writer-director sat down for a 40-minute conversation with her frequent editorial and production consultant Phillip Schopper and Jeffrey Wolf, who was an assistant editor on the film. Topics included the film’s surprising origins, stars Peter Falk and John Cassavetes, and the bizarre story of the film’s extremely troubled post-production during which the film went “missing” and Paramount sued May.

May has always been upfront about her family’s connection to organized crime; Falk and Cassvetes’ characters were based on people she knew growing up.

“Martin Scorsese only makes movies for men.” That’s often the prevailing wisdom about one of our finest filmmakers, an assertion that has dominated the discourse around his work as much as the falsehood that he endorses the bad actions of his characters. It’s an idea so embedded in...

“Within every man there are two men. One who learns to be civilized by day. One who longs to be savage by night.”

So begins the theatrical teaser for Mike Nichols’ Wolf (1994). I remember seeing it for the first time on the “Coming Soon” section of a freshly bought VHS tape brought home by my mom (it might have been Bram Stoker’s Dracula or maybe Jurassic Park) and at the time it scared the hell out of me. The sight of a beastly Jack Nicholson, heaving with barely repressed lust and violence over the prone body of Michelle Pfeiffer, was spooky to me in a way movies can only be when you’re eight years old and the possibility of monsters being around every corner is still very viable to you.

That trailer now feels like a fading snapshot of a Hollywood that used to be able to get...

Broadway veteran Cheyenne Jackson was ready to take another break from musical theater as he had done once before. That is until he got an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“Oh, Mary!” director Sam Pinkleton wanted him for a starring role in a revival of the Tony Award-winning musical “La Cage aux Folles” at the Pasadena Playhouse.

“I had made the decision — about a week prior to getting the call from Sam — that I was going to take a long sabbatical from musical theater again,” says Jackson, also known by TV fans for his work on “Doctor Odyssey,” “Call Me Kat,” “American Horror Story” and “30 Rock.” “I had taken about a 10-year break before, and I was feeling like, ‘Ok, I’ve scratched that itch a lot.’ I just did ‘Once Upon a Mattress’ and ‘Into the Woods’ and I was done. I want to focus on writing. I...

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,...

Rhenzy Feliz has come into the national spotlight thanks to his fantastic co-starring performance in The Penguin, but the actor has been a part of plenty of notable TV shows and movies before 2024, putting in impressive acting showcases each time he appears. Born on October 26, 1997, Feliz was just 26 when he appeared in The Penguin premiere. That wasn't even close to Feliz's first acting job though, and the Brooklyn, NY native got his start back in 2016, with a recurring role on the Hulu comedy series, Casual, in season 2.

Work never let up for Feliz, and aside from a few years in the early 2020s, the Covid-19 years, as they were, he's been constantly performing in either TV or movies. His innocence and charm makes for a good mix that allows him to inhabit sweet, kind characters, who are also stronger than they may appear at first glance. The Penguin is how most wider audiences know him,...

A New Leaf.The prologue of Carrie Courogen’s Miss May Does Not Exist details her quest to interview the deliberately enigmatic, fiercely private filmmaker Elaine May. Courogen is a self-professed fan who has penned the first proper biography of the auteur, a task complicated by the fact that May makes a habit of avoiding most interviews. In the end, Courogen’s requests proved fruitless, though she went so far as to stake out May’s New York apartment building in a cheap blonde wig, a scenario straight out of one of May’s sketches, plays, or films. “You can’t help but love her for remaining silent,” Courogen writes; “speaking would change the narrative, would go against everything she appears to stand for. Her voluntary absence, her unwillingness to alter her behavior, isn’t just perfectly her, isn’t just truthful. It’s comedy.”Comedy is more than a...

Do you remember, in Chimp Crazy, how the real director Eric Goode wasn’t trusted by his subjects because he made Tiger King, so they had to have Dwayne Cunningham step in as a proxy director to get the film made? Well, there is a similar yet extremely different situation...

After leading dark comedy “A Different Man” and Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” Sebastian Stan is slated for iconic filmmaker Elaine May’s fifth and final feature, “Crackpot.” However, production is still waiting on a shadow director for the 92-year-old May.

Stan said during “The Big Picture” podcast that he is on board the project, which was first announced in 2019. Dakota Johnson is set to co-lead alongside Stan, but Stan said he still doesn’t know the status of the film — and he’s casting his net in hopes of helping May find a shadow director to insure the movie. It’s a common set practice with older filmmakers.

“I have this thing, I don’t know if it’ll ever get going,” Stan said. “I have this thing that Elaine May was going to direct. It was going to be her last film and her first film since ‘Ishtar.

After many years of radio silence on Elaine May’s Crackpot, a comedy starring Dakota Johnson that was planned to be the 92-year-old filmmaker’s fifth and final directorial feature, we finally got an update earlier this year. During the Madame Web press tour of all things, Johnson confirmed it’s still in development and they are working on casting. Now we have an update on an additional cast member and the one roadblock that’s preventing the film from getting underway.

Sebastian Stan, who now has A Different Man and The Apprentice in theaters, revealed on The Big Picture podcast that he’s attached to the film and what precisely is holding up production. “I have this thing, I don’t know if it’ll ever get going. I have this thing that Elaine May was going to direct. It was going to be her last film and her first film since Ishtar.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

An essential retrospective of Brazil’s L.C. Barreto Productions begins.

Roxy Cinema

Another Woman and The Lords of Flatbush play on 35mm.

Museum of the Moving Image

A retrospective of the Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden begins; The Gleaners and I plays on Saturday; Speed Racer shows on Sunday.

Anthology Film Archives

An honestly titled retrospective, “Essential/Unessential Warhol,” begins.

Film Forum

A Spielberg retrospective begins, featuring E.T. on 35mm; Army of Shadows continues and West Side Story plays on Sunday.

Museum of Modern Art

“Paramount in the 1970s” includes films by Warren Beatty, Elaine May, and Peter Bogdanovich.

IFC Center

Rosemary’s Baby and a 40th-anniversary restoration of Paris, Texas play daily; Caligula: The Ultimate Cut and The Conversation continue; Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Hostel, The Goonies, Mute Witness, and The Vanishing play late.

Metrograph

The Seventh Seal,...

Donald Glover and Maya Erskine aren’t returning for season 2 of Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith?! What? Is this some sort of contract negotiation standoff? Even after the series’ 16 Emmy nominations including Lead Actor and Lead Actress in a drama?

Hardly, according to co-Creator and EP Francesca Sloane and the show’s director and EP Hiro Murai.

“We’re just trying to make the best version of season 2 possible,” Sloane tells Crew Call, “That’s why we’re being so coy about it.” That is whether Glover and Erskine are really not returning.

Donald Glover, Maya Erskine

Well, then is the gist of future Mr. & Mrs. Smith seasons to be like an anthology series ala Fargo? Sloane was a producer on that Noah Hawley created series. “Maybe,” she tells us.

“We wanted the ending to leave on this nod to a’ 70s cinema cliffhanger,” Sloane says, “If we tell you too much,...

Lo, the enduring miracle of the film awards year. Just when things begin to look hopeless—and it was looking pretty bleak a month ago—intriguing, maybe even watchable, prospects suddenly sprout. The movies are like Osiris, that old Egyptian resurrection god: You just can’t keep ‘em down.

As August arrives, more than a few adult viewers, unattuned to the ongoing fantasy-and-animation boom, are now peeking around the corner at Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night Live origins story. The film was scheduled last week by Columbia Pictures for release on Oct. 11—the 49th anniversary of NBC’s first SNL broadcast, back in 1975.

As historical moments go, that may or may not impress the film Academy’s growing body of foreign-based Oscar voters. But for the domestic crowd, especially those in upper age brackets, the birth of an American comedy phenomenon, still alive some five decades later, is compelling.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Fidelio, our four-film program with Chapo Trap House’s Movie Mindset, begins this Saturday with Eyes Wide Shut on 35mm, which plays again on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

70mm prints of 2001 and Lawrence of Arabia screen.

Film at Lincoln Center

A retrospective of Mexican popular cinema from the 1940s to the 1960s continues and a new restoration of Shinji Sōmai’s Moving opens.

Film Forum

A career-spanning Jean-Pierre Melville retrospective continues, as do restorations of Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams and Seven Samurai.

Anthology Film Archives

Films by James Benning, Robert Bresson, and Jean Eustache screen in “Verbatim“; films by James Broughton play in “Essential Cinema.”

Bam

Claire Denis’ monumental No Fear, No Die and Mapantsula continue screening in new restorations.

Museum of Modern Art

“Silent Movie Week 2024” begins

IFC Center

“Defamed to Acclaimed” brings films by the Wachowskis,...

Bob Newhart, an Emmy winner and nine-time nominee who helped launch the recorded comedy craze with two smash stand-up albums before starring in the revered TV shows The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, died today at his Los Angeles home. He was 94.

His longtime publicist Jerry Digney said Newhart died after a series of short illnesses.

Newhart broke out in 1960 with a pair of No. 1 comedy albums — despite never having done stand-up before. The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart spent 14 weeks atop the Billboard 200 and stayed on that chart for more than two years. The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! arrived about 10 months later and also hit No. 1. The former won Grammys for Album of the Year, Comedy Album of the Year and Best New Artist and featured a slow-spoken still-cited monologue with Newhart as Abe Lincoln.

Related: Hollywood & Media Deaths In 2024: Photo Gallery & Obituaries

“I worked as an accountant for 2½ years,...

On July 17, 1926, a theater opened in Portland, Oregon. Talkies were still a year away and the Great Depression hadn’t yet struck vaudeville, so it played host to variety acts, as well as silent films paired with an 8-piece orchestra and organist. It was called the Hollywood Theatre and its popularity grew so rapidly that soon, the entire district around the theater became known as the Hollywood of Portland. Today it remains the last theater of its era still standing in the City of Roses and showcases both first-run films and a wide range of repertory cinema.

Put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, the theater has three auditoriums, one of which features a 50-foot screen and 384 seats. In 1997, the theater was made a non-profit, with major renovations taking place between 2011 and 2015 that revitalized the marquee and brought back 70mm screening capabilities. Extending its reach beyond its doors,...

When Nicole Holofcener was coming up in the ’90s, she was celebrated as that rare thing: a female writer-director. Today, she’s no longer a rarity, and she’s still delivering sharp, funny observational comedies about flawed middle-class New York women. But somehow, the breadth and potential of her talent remains elusive.

Hollywood gives her scripts to write and rewrite and polish (for the big bucks). She wrote, with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, “The Last Duel” for Ridley Scott, crafting the Jodie Comer character, and the Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh roles in Marvel’s “Black Widow.” She made more on that three-week assignment than three of her movies combined, she said at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which tributed her this year, playing three of her films for an audience unfamiliar with her work. She’s currently writing for Gillian Anderson and Greta Lee in Disney’s latest iteration of “Tron.

Carrie Courogan titled her new book about Elaine May, the legendary writer, director, and comic, “Miss May Does Not Exist.” But for some, it might feel like May’s feature films don’t necessarily either – particularly “The Heartbreak Kid.” The 1972 comedy – a box office hit upon its release and future Oscar nominee – is out of print on physical media, never cycles through the surfeit of available streaming platforms, and rarely screens at repertory theaters. So it was little surprise to find an enthusiastic crowd inside New York’s Metrograph theater on Wednesday night for a 35mm members-only showing of “The Heartbreak Kid” pegged to the recent release of Courogan’s book. (The print was loaned out by the Academy Film Archive.)

Based on the short story by Bruce Jay Friedman and written for the screen by Neil Simon, “The Heartbreak Kid” focuses on Lenny Cantrow (a sublime Charles Grodin), a...

It’s New York City, 1989. Susan Seidelman is in the delivery room, in labor with her son. “Siskel and Ebert” plays on the TV, and in between contractions, the two critics are tearing apart her new movie “She-Devil.” “Watching them review my film literally with the doctor’s hand inside of me telling me to push was very strange,” Seidelman recalls.

That surreal scene is just one of the memorable moments the trailblazing director recounts in “Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls.” By turns reflective and celebratory, the book covers the surprises and setbacks of a career carved out at a time when women filmmakers were a rarity.

When Seidelman first realized she could aspire to become a movie director, she could barely find a role model. Outside of Elaine May, there was only a small handful of women directing. But Seidelman kept at it,...

Anthea Sylbert, an Oscar-nominated costume designer who worked on some of the signature films of the late 1960s and 1970s, including “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Carnal Knowledge,” “Chinatown,” “Shampoo,” “Julia” and “King Kong,” and a producer later in her career on a number of films starring Goldie Hawn, has died. She was 84.

Her death was confirmed by Robert Romanus, her stepson.

Sylbert, subject of a forthcoming documentary by Sakis Lalas titled “Anthea Sylbert: My Life in 3 Acts,” also served as an executive at United Artists and Warner Bros., at a time when there were few women in the C-suites of Hollywood. She also worked repeatedly with director Mike Nichols, both onscreen and onstage, and was Oscar-nominated for her costuming on period films “Chinatown” (1974) and “Julia” (1977).

Assessing Sylbert’s work on “Chinatown,” GlamAmor, a website dedicated to the history of fashion in film, said in 2012: “Sylbert crafted clothes for Faye Dunaway that...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science has announced five honorees for the 15th annual Governors Awards. The ceremony will celebrate “Love Actually” and “Notting Hill” director Richard Curtis; songwriter, producer, and seven-time Oscar nominee Quincy Jones; longtime James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson; and legendary casting director Juliet Taylor, best known for collaborations with Woody Allen, Mike Nicholas, Nora Ephron, and Steven Spielberg.

The Governors Awards are often viewed as an unofficial start to the Oscar season in Los Angeles, as the event is frequently attended by Oscar hopefuls looking to interact with Academy Awards voters. Recent ceremonies have honored the likes of Mel Brooks, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, and Elaine May with lifetime achievement awards.

As announced earlier in 2024, the Academy will launch a competitive Casting Oscar category next year to honor 2025 film releases. Taylor’s inclusion here feels in spirit of the push toward the long-overdue award,...

Before now there has never been a full-length biography of Elaine May, the icon known for being one-half of Nichols and May and the director of A New Leaf, The Heartbreak Kid, Mikey and Nicky, and the hilarious, unfairly maligned Ishtar. Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius is the book that fans of May have been wanting for, well, the entire career of the comedian, screenwriter, playwright, and filmmaker.

The world, it seems, was waiting for Carrie Courogen. The writer, whose work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Teen Vogue, Glamour, and Pitchfork, pored through archives, conducted interviews, and dug deep to highlight a person who has avoided the spotlight for decades. Miss May Does Not Exist obviously enhances one’s knowledge of May, but it also succeeds in something far greater: it deepens our cultural appreciation for a figure whose...

Hot on a role right now, Glen Powell is set for a reimaging of ‘Heaven Can Wait’ which is in early development at Paramount Pictures.

Based on Harry Segall’s play of the same name, the story made its way to the big screen back in 1978 and starred Warren Beatty. It focused on Beatty’s NFL quarterback who dies prematurely due to an antsy angel and returns to Earth in the body of a recently murdered millionaire. Beatty also co-directed the film with Buck Henry and co-wrote the script with Elaine May.

Also in news – Steve Carrell set for HBO untitled comedy series

Oscar winner Stephan Gaghan is set to pen the latest iteration of the story. Powell and Gaghan’s upcoming project is reportedly not a remake and will not centre around a football player as the main character. However, it will retain the concept of a man being taken away before his time.

Chalk up another project for Glen Powell. Recently, the Hit Man star was announced to be in talks for the new unknown J.J. Abrams project. He was also announced to star in the thriller Huntington, which puts him alongside Margaret Qualley and Ed Harris, as well as joining Anthony Mackie and Laura Dern for the legal drama titled Monsanto. The Hollywood Reporter has now revealed that Powell is now set to star in a reimagining of Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait for Paramount. Stephen Gaghan, who won an Academy Award for his script for Steven Soderbergh’s 2000 crime film Traffic, has been tapped to pen the screenplay for this update.

The 1978 Warren Beatty film was based on Harry Segall’s play of the same name and garnered nominations for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture; however, the movie would only post a win for Best Art Direction. In the original,...

Jan Haag, who a half-century ago founded the landmark Directing Workshop for Women at the American Film Institute, has died. She was 90.

The remarkable Haag, who also was an actress, painter, poet, novelist, playwright, writer of travel stories and creator of needlepoint canvases, some of which required hundreds of hours to complete, died Monday in Shoreline, Washington, according to the AFI and the Mb Abram agency.

Haag had directed dozens of educational films for the John Tracy Clinic and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare when she became the first woman accepted into the Academy Intern Program at the AFI in 1970, three years after it was founded by George Stevens Jr.

She was assigned to Paramount’s Harold and Maude (1971), directed by Hal Ashby, then joined the AFI staff in 1971, and among her duties was to administer the nonprofit’s film grant program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Yentl.The publication of My Name Is Barbra, Barbra Streisand's 970-page memoir, has offered fans of the actress-singer-icon a long-awaited glimpse into her life. It’s a lot of book, a maximalist feast of details and anecdotes that paints a lavish portrait of the woman who became a generational star. It’s easy to forget just how much of Streisand's career was besieged by misogyny, whether it was critics' repeated derision of appearance or co-stars like Walter Matthau berating her on set. Streisand certainly never forgot, and her memoir offers frequent reminders of the sexism that hampered her path to success at every turn. Her memoir conveys an achingly detailed portrait of endurance by a wildly ambitious woman. Wherever she went, she was derided for trying to do or be “too much,” and she took pleasure in proving her detractors wrong in her inimitable style. When she chose to get behind the camera and direct,...

How many great films does it take to designate a director as a historically significant auteur? Jean Vigo only directed a few shorts and one feature, but they were enough to make him a hero to the pioneers of the French New Wave. Actor-turned-helmer Charles Laughton directed just one movie — “The Night of the Hunter” — but it was such a haunting and singular masterpiece that few would argue that Laughton was one of the medium’s masters. Elaine May stopped directing after four movies, but she’d probably be considered one of the greatest directors who ever lived if she had only made “Mikey and Nicky.”

Christina Hornisher is nowhere near as well known as Vigo, Laughton, or May, but she should be — and now, thanks to a pristine restoration of her sole feature, “Hollywood 90028,” perhaps she will. Released in 1974 after Hornisher earned critical accolades for her UCLA film school shorts,...

Reader, you have been lied to! Film history is littered with unfairly maligned classics, whether critics were too eager to review the making of rather than the finished product, or they suffered from underwhelming ad campaigns or general disinterest. Let’s revise our takes on some of these films from the wrongheaded to the correct opinion.

Earlier this year, the Criterion Channel launched a series devoted to films that have won Golden Raspberry Awards, or “Razzies,” prizes ostensibly created to recognize the worst that cinema has to offer. The idea of streaming’s most respected curator of film art showcasing a selection of Razzie winners was one whose time was long overdue, given the Razzies’ astonishingly reliable tendency to be on the wrong side of history; the list of nominations from any given year is typically more useful as a guide for suggested viewing than as an indication of what to avoid.

Few films capture the trials and tribulations of twenty-something waywardness rooted in economic realities of today so eloquently and humorously as Ryan Martin Brown’s feature debut Free Time, as I noted in my March preview. Led by Colin Burgess in a beautifully articulated performance of neurotic self-sabotage, this portrait of “the Great Resignation” more than makes up for its small scale with keen observations on what it means to have a creatively satisfying life. Accompanied by the strong supporting cast of Rajat Suresh, Holmes, James Webb, Eric Yates, Jessie Pinnick, and Rebecca Bulnes, Free Time feels like the promising beginnings of a new era in NYC indie filmmaking.

Ahead of the film’s theatrical release beginning at New York’s Quad Cinema this Friday, I spoke with Ryan Martin Brown about developing his first feature, his approach to comedy, being inspired by The Heartbreak Kid and The Jerk, the...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

The Bridges of Madison County, Bette Gordon’s Variety, and Secretary play on 35mm this weekend.

Anthology Film Archives

Works about the Palestinian film archive screen this weekend while films by Raul Ruiz, Yvonne Rainer, Michael Snow, and more play in Afterimage.

Museum of Modern Art

Max Fleischer’s cartoons play in a new retrospective.

Museum of the Moving Image

A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Elaine May, Jonathan Demme, and Mike Leigh.

Film Forum

As the Japanese horror series continues, the American horror film Freaky Friday plays on Sunday.

Bam

Raoul Peck’s Lumumba: Death of a Prophet continues.

IFC Center

A Brian Yuzna retrospective is underway; Starship Troopers, Fight Club, Mondo New York, and The Shining play late.

The post NYC Weekend Watch: The Bridges of Madison County, Palestinian Film Archive, Max Fleischer & More...

Mubi has unveiled next’s streaming lineup, featuring notable new releases, including Felipe Gálvez’s The Settlers, Éric Gravel’s Full Time, C.J. Obasi’s Mami Wata, and Benjamin Mullinkosson’s The Last Year of Darkness.

This March also brings Elaine May’s Ishtar, four features by Mia Hansen-Løve, and a collection of films shot by women cinematographers, with Claire Denis’ Bastards, shot by Agnès Godard, and more. Next month’s collection also features retrospectives of radical German director Margarethe Von Trotta, experimental animator Suzan Pitt, and additions to their continuing retrospective of Takeshi Kitano.

Check out the lineup below, and get 30 days free here.

March 1st

The German Sisters, directed by Margarethe von Trotta | Radical Intimacy: Three by Margarethe von Trotta

The Second Awakening of Christa Klages, directed by Margarethe von Trotta | Radical Intimacy: Three by Margarethe von Trotta

The Promise, directed by Margarethe von Trotta | Radical Intimacy: Three...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

A retrospective of Denis Villeneuve’s work also brings the director’s programming choices, among them films by Godard, Resnais, Cassavetes, and Wong Kar-wai.

Roxy Cinema

Bob Fosse’s Star 80, The Piano Teacher, The Pillow Book, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and End of Night all play on 35mm.

Anthology Film Archives

As retrospective of Haitian cinema continues, films by Hollis Frampton and Ernie Gehr play Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Film Forum

“Sapph-o-rama” continues with films by Nicholas Ray, Jonathan Demme, Lizzie Borden, and more; a 4K restoration of Pandora’s Box has begun a run; a print of The Third Man continues, while the Harold Lloyd film Hot Water shows on 35mm this Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

A retrospective of snubbed performances brings films by Scorsese, Elaine May, Jonathan Demme, and Gus Van Sant...

There is, a critic will argue, a great deal of value in finding and discussing the worst films of the year. All the films released in a given epoch are a reflection of the trends and ideas that produced them, and scoring the bottom of the barrel for the worst filmmaking, the worst ideas, and the most misguided thinking will provide a valuable analysis of where we are as a society. Worst-of lists are important and vital and should be written with enthusiasm. They also let critics blow off steam a little bit; we don't have the luxury to skip bad movies or avoid talking about the ones we hate. It's our job.

The Golden Raspberries, or the Razzies for short, however, lost sight of that value a while back. The annual Razzies announcement is usually a snarky affair that only serves to pick on the year's least popular blockbusters,...

Some apotheosis of film culture has been reached with Freddy Got Fingered‘s addition to the Criterion Channel. Three years after we interviewed Tom Green about his consummate film maudit, it’s appearing on the service’s Razzie-centered program that also includes the now-admired likes of Cruising, Heaven’s Gate, Querelle, and Ishtar; the still-due likes of Under the Cherry Moon; and the more-contested Gigli, Swept Away, and Nicolas Cage-led Wicker Man. In all cases it’s an opportunity to reconsider one of the lamest, thin-gruel entities in modern culture.

A Jane Russell retro features von Sternberg’s Macao, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Raoul Walsh’s The Tall Men and The Revolt of Mamie Stover; streaming premieres will be held for Yuen Woo-ping’s Dreadnaught, Claire Simon’s Our Body, Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, the recently restored Sepa: Our Lord of Miracles, and The Passion of Rememberance.

Ask and you shall receive. A couple weeks ago I had some flash of memory about Crackpot, the new Elaine May feature––her first since Ishtar, released during Ronald Reagan’s Presidency––announced in November 2019 with Dakota Johnson attached. A historic number of things transpired in the immediate months hence, four years came to feel like 25, and any and all notice of it turned to dust. In other words: I just wondered if there was some chance.

Not even ten hours later Ben Mekler implored anyone interviewing Johnson on her Madame Web tour to yield an update. Doing the necessary footwork, Brazilian journalist Thiago Gelli did just that. And as she stated:

“We are trying to get that done. It’s so hard to get any movies made ever, at all, but I’m producing it and Elaine will direct it and I’ll star in it, and we’re working on casting.

The Obie Awards, the venerable honors for outstanding Off Broadway and Off Off Broadway productions, is doing away with its annual ceremony and will instead use the funds to provide winners with grants ranging from $1,000-$5,000.

Heather Hitchens, the president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing, which presents the Obies, called the grants a new path forward for the awards, saying the move “genuinely reflects the ethos of the Awards as well as the Off & Off Off Broadway movements – which is to continuously evolve and meet the moment.”

Select winners of this year’s 67th Obie Awards will be announced Saturday on New York’s Spectrum News NY1 as a special presentation of the channel’s On Stage program hosted by Frank Dilella. The special airs at 7:30 p.m./Et.

“The grants and our relationship with Spectrum News NY1 will provide meaningful support, and more effective, nationwide promotion for these incredible artists,...

When Nathan Silver’s mother was in her mid-60s, she decided to have a bat mitzvah. As the indie filmmaker started telling people that his mother was embarking on a rite of passage usually reserved for teenagers, a friend urged him to turn her story into a movie. Now, “Between the Temples,” a screwball comedy inspired by mom’s coming-of-age ceremony, will premiere at Sundance, with Carol Kane and Jason Schwartzman playing an elderly bat mitzvah student and a depressed cantor who forge an unlikely bond.

“It’s one from the heart,” says Silver. “It’s a story that touches on many aspects of my life.”

It also gives Kane and Schwartzman, who so often steal scenes in supporting roles, a chance to shine as leads. Signing on required a leap of faith for Kane because Silver’s scripts, which he calls “scriptments” and likens to novellas, aren’t traditional.

The real Bonnie and Clyde may have died in 1933, but the legend of the couple's crime spree lives on in the form of songs, stories, and one groundbreaking movie. Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" took Hollywood by storm when it hit theaters in 1967, generating controversy for its on-screen violence and sensuality -- and kick-starting nationwide conversations about who deserves to be the subject of a movie. While film fans still talk about these topics today, the movie's brutal final shootout feels mild compared to modern blood-soaked movie scenes.

Still, "Bonnie and Clyde" is a fantastic film, thanks in large part to its great cast. Warren Beatty plays cocky Clyde Barrow to Faye Dunaway's initially innocent Bonnie Parker, while actors Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, and Estelle Parsons round out the Barrow gang. A young Gene Wilder made his big screen debut as one of Clyde's hostages, while Denver...

In 1997, the Screen Actors Guild award for best ensemble in a motion picture was expected to go to a “serious” nominee like The English Patient (which would go on to win the best picture Oscar), Sling Blade or Marvin’s Room (boasting a cast including Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio). But The Birdcage swooped in for a surprise win.

Producer-director Mike Nichols and writer Elaine May had adapted the film from the French stage farce La Cage Aux Folles, moving the story of a gay couple who own a nightclub in Saint-Tropez to Miami, where Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, as Armand and Albert Goldman, become increasingly stressed out when Armand’s son, Val (Dan Futterman), comes to visit with his fiancée (Calista Flockhart) and her ultraconservative parents. The cast is rounded out by Hank Azaria as the Goldmans’ housekeeper, Christine Baranski as Val’s mother and Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest as Republican Sen.

Tom Smothers, one-half of the famed Smothers Brothers comedy duo, who brought a revolutionary hit of music and political satire to late Sixties television, has died, The New York Times reports. He was 86.

Smothers died at his home in Santa Rosa, California, following a “recent battle with cancer,” according to a spokesman for the National Comedy Center, on behalf of the family. No additional details were shared.

Tom’s younger brother and comedic partner, Dick, said in a statement, “Tom was not only the loving older brother that everyone would want in their life,...