News

In “The Thing” (1982), John Carpenter doesn’t simply revive the alien-invasion narrative—he infects it. The film festers in its own paranoia, turning the genre inside out, stitching together a vision of horror that is less about the arrival of the other than the collapse of the self. On top of that, the movie is so much fun, and it still holds up well. Part of this has to do with the ample tension in the film—the story is on another level—and the practical effects have stood the test of time.

The film opens in the blinding white desolation of Antarctica. A dog runs across the ice, pursued by a Norwegian helicopter, shot at, and hunted. The Americans at Outpost 31 take the dog in, unknowingly inviting in something ancient and formless, something which does not kill to survive—it imitates. From there, the narrative dissolves into a study in suspicion.

Fans already know Sergio Leone is the father of the "Spaghetti Western" and has had a significant impact on cinema. There will truly be no greater masterpiece in the sub-genre than The Good, The Bad and the Ugly or a more masterful body of work than the Dollars Trilogy. Leone shaped the direction of Westerns worldwide in the '60s and then continued to prove he was one of the greatest auteurs of all time throughout the rest of his career. He's usually the only Sergio fans think of when they think of Spaghetti Westerns. However, there was another Sergio who had just as big an impact on the sub-genre. In fact, Sergio Corbucci made more Spaghetti Westerns in his career than Sergio Leone.

Perhaps his most iconic film is the 1966 film Django, which got mainstream publicity after Quentin Tarantino's 2012 film Django Unchained. However, Corbucci made several great Spaghetti...

Guillermo del Toro is one of those people who in spite of the fact that I’ve never even met him, I feel like I know him. His social media posts and public profile paint him as a such a warm and engaging presence. And his vast knowledge of cinema makes him a trusted resource whose input I’m always keen to take in.

Speaking of del Toro’s social media posts, I recently happened upon a Tweet from some time ago where the Crimson Peak director championed an overlooked crime thriller from the ‘70s. The picture in question is Revolver (1973).

Del Toro’s endorsement reads: “Movie: Revolver by Sergio Solima. Simple premise, complex characters. Moral grey world. Morricone’s fab score is similar to The Untouchables”.

Where is Revolver available to stream?

With an enthusiastic recommendation like that, you’re probably keen to track down Revolver and experience the film for yourself.

As the progenitor of the Real Robot mecha subgenre of anime, the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise was a veritable trendsetter. This mostly manifested in mecha anime in particular, but science fiction anime as a whole is indebted to this brand. Nevertheless, as influential as it is, Gundam has a rather strange history with plagiarism in the most surprising way.

Many Gundam anime have songs that are seemingly outright stolen from other sources, which is a rather odd thing to associate with the mecha franchise. Some of these can actually be explained away due to one album in particular, while others are simply a result of Japan's loose copyright laws. Ironically, Gundam isn't even necessarily an anime franchise known for its music, further explaining how it's "gotten away" with this.

Zeta Gundam Doesn't Actually Steal Its 1st Opening Theme Neil Sedaka Had a “Pure Time” With the Theme Image via Sunrise...

In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. For Eli Roth in spring, however, his fancies tend to turn darker, more menacingly humorous, and toward the more bloodily outrageous. Take his plans for March 21. That’s when the horror film director-writer will be putting out the first release of his collaboration with the Italian soundtrack label Cam Sugar, “Eli Roth’s Red Light Disco: Dancefloor Seductions From Italian Sexploitation Cinema,” which will be distributed through Universal Music.

March 21 is also the day that Roth begins offering “stock” to his rabid fanbase in what he calls his independent “mini-studio,” the Horror Section, in partnership with the investing platform Republic.

An obsessive when it comes to music and film — be it admiration for the currency of horror filmmakers, his own slasher cinematic catalog, or the “commedia sexy all’italiana” soundtracks of the 1970s and early 1980s...

Living in the Catskills for six years has made Hannah Cohen an expert at mushroom foraging. In the several acres of woods that surround her mid-Seventies house, she’ll encounter golden oysters, chicken-of-the-woods, indigo milk caps, black trumpets, and maitake (she takes home 30 pounds worth of the latter every year).

But two years ago, she came across an unfamiliar species that stunned her: earthstars, bizarrely beautiful fungi with several arms resembling a celestial body. “They looked like they were from another planet,” Cohen, 38, says. “I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?...

Quick LinksWhat is the Story of State of Grace?How Goodfellas Overshadowed the Film During Its Release (and Still Continues To Do So)Gary Oldman Delivered One of His Career-Best Performances in State of Grace

Gary Oldman is considered to be one of the greatest actors currently living and for very good reason. Fans of DC Comics are sure to remember him for his turn as Commissioner Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and Harry Potter fans will immediately recognize him for his role as Sirius Black. He's also been celebrated worldwide for his chameleon-like ability to disappear into any role he touches, having won an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. One of his more underrated performances happens to also come from one of his more underrated films. When State of Grace was released in 1992, it was a critical success, garnering a "certified...

Quick LinksWhat is the Story of State of Grace?How Goodfellas Overshadowed the Film During Its Release (and Still Continues To Do So)Gary Oldman Delivered One of His Career-Best Performances in State of Grace

Gary Oldman is considered to be one of the greatest actors currently living and for very good reason. Fans of DC Comics are sure to remember him for his turn as Commissioner Gordon in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and Harry Potter fans will immediately recognize him for his role as Sirius Black. He's also been celebrated worldwide for his chameleon-like ability to disappear into any role he touches, having won an Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. One of his more underrated performances happens to also come from one of his more underrated films. When State of Grace was released in 1992, it was a critical success, garnering a "certified...

Plot: Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick), who’s reinvented herself as an amateur investigator (as well as being a mommy blogger), is convinced by her old foe, Emily (Blake Lively), to attend her extravagant destination wedding in Capri.

Review: A Simple Favor was a surprisingly effective potboiler, anchored by two ace performances from Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively. Plus, it had snappy direction from Paul Feig and a tight script that somehow managed to take some vast cliches and make them feel fresh. As such, the only thing surprising about a sequel being made is that Amazon’s opting to premiere this on streaming, despite Lively’s last movie making $300 million worldwide – controversy be damned.

While not as inspired as the original and more of a retread than expected, the gorgeous scenery (well-photographed by John Schwartzman) and an especially good turn by Lively make it worthwhile. Emily Nelson is surely the best role of her career,...

War films have long been a staple of cinema, exploring the heroism, sacrifice, and horrors that must arise in conflict. While some war movies have secured iconic status in the canon—such as Saving Private Ryan and Full Metal Jacket—others, despite their strong storytelling and craftsmanship, have faded, or been born into, relative obscurity from the mainstream consciousness. These films offer unique perspectives, diverse settings, and nuanced portrayals of the human experience during wartime. Whether set on the front lines, in the trenches, or behind enemy lines, they often present gripping narratives that blend historical events with deeply personal stories.

While their impact may not have been as lasting as the more widely recognized classics, these underappreciated films provide valuable insights into the complexity of war and the toll it takes on those involved. The best war movies transcend their genre, tackling themes of loyalty, survival, and morality, while...

March 17, 1951 was a great day in history, because that’s the day Kurt Vogel Russell entered the world. And while he would go on to become one of the biggest icons of the eighties and nineties, many folks don’t know that Russell started as a child star for The Walt Disney Company, even acting opposite his future life partner Goldie Hawn in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968) – although they wouldn’t get together until Russell ended up in another movie starring Goldie Hawn, Swing Shift (1984). From the sixties into the seventies, he starred in Disney flicks like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969), but as the studio’s movies started to flop and Russell got older, a change of pace was needed. Arguably, Russell’s career took off when he began working with director John Carpenter, with the first movie being 1979’s TV movie Elvis, but what...

The Oscar race for Best Original Score has focused on two top contenders. Here’s a breakdown of the race.

SEEHow Kieran Culkin could end this 12-year Oscar streak Frontrunner: The Brutalist, by Daniel Blumberg

This is one of four scores in this category that swept the nominations with bids from the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, BAFTAs, and Society of Composers and Lyricists (Scl) — the others are Conclave, Emilia Pérez, and The Wild Robot. Blumberg’s score won the BAFTA, another strong sign in his favor. In addition, this music has won awards from the Washington, D.C., Area Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Online, and the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, to name a few. And while Blumberg doesn’t have any Oscar priors — this is his first nomination — one could certainly argue that he has composed the most conspicuous orchestral score.

British musician and DJ Matthew Herbert has pretty much done it all. After making a name for himself in electronic music (his 2003 manifesto “Personal Contract for the Composition of Music” famously emphasizes “no drum machines”) and launching his label Accidental Records, he ended up remixing such iconic artists as Quincy Jones, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg, and classical composer Gustav Mahler.

His production work has seen him work with the likes of The Zone of Interest composer Mica Levi, Róisín Murphy (one half of the pop duo Moloko), and frequent collaborator and Icelandic songstress Björk. Best known for turning ordinary or so-called found sound into electronic music, he has also become a go-to partner for film and TV creators looking for a score. Cases in point are such films as A Fantastic Woman and Starve Acre, as well as such TV series as The Responder and Noughts and Crosses.

Most recently,...

Many films have been made that drew their inspiration and aesthetics from video games, manga and anime, but few as successfully, as exciting and as exhilarating as “Escape from the 21st Century”. Li Yang‘s madcap sci-fi adventure is a visual feast boasting excellent visual effects despite its low budget, a convincing mix of live footage and 2D animation and a rousing spectacle that can only honor its many inspirations.

Escape from the 21st Century is available from Signature Entertainment

It is almost impossible to describe the story while doing justice to the film’s nonsensical sense of fun. On distant planet K in 1999, a trio of teenagers are exposed to a toxic chemical that gives them the ability to travel through time to the year 2019 and back… by simply sneezing. In the future, they inhabit the bodies of their future selves and are soon confronted by the challenges, surprises...

When science-fiction and horror overlap, there is running and screaming, the towns people grab pitchforks and torches and the very idea of what it means to be human is called into question. At least, that’s what happens in some of the best movies that dip into both genres.

The age-old question of where the ethical line is in science and whether it should be crossed never ceases to generate new terrors as technology continues to develop. Killer cyborgs and androids? Out-of-control genetic mutation? Radiation-spawned monsters? All of these have have fueled some of our favorite sci-fi horror films.

If you’re new to this subgenre, here are some great movies to start with:

Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (Credit: Universal Pictures) Frankenstein (1931)

The original mad scientist’s experiment gone wrong, with a career-making — and wordless — performance from lead Boris Karloff as the monster. With this and the horror hit “Dracula,...

Chris Sanders is a one-of-a-kind artist.

As a kid, looking through various “art of” books for the 1990s Disney classics, you could always pick out a Chris Sanders illustration or a Chris Sanders storyboard, even without a little note explaining that it was him. It was just obvious. It wasn’t just the style of his illustrations or drawings; it was how much story and emotion was conveyed, breathlessly, with every line.

His latest film as a writer/director, “The Wild Robot,” contains all that we have come to expect (and love) from Sanders – an art style that boldly pushes the medium forward, characters that are so easy to love and root for, and a truthfulness to the occasionally harsh realities of life that are never dwelled on but are instead depicted with frank objectivity.

It’s incredible to see his vision so fully realized, and it was enough to...

Every year, Hollywood's most famous actors, directors, writers, and everyone in-between come together to celebrate the best films of the season. From The Academy Awards to the Golden Globes, it's a tradition that attracts the attention of an entire nation, and a good chunk of the world. But none of that means anything, because the true awards show announcement has finally arrived. The Golden Raspberry Awards, aka Razzie Awards, a notoriously unserious organization, has revealed the nominees for the 2024 show, and there are no surprises here.

Per The Hollywood Reporter, a slew of popular titles from 2024 were at the top of the most-nominated list for this year's Razzies. To no one’s surprise, Joker: Folie à Deux has the most nominations at seven, while Madame Web, Megalopolis, Borderlands, and Reagan are tied with six nominations for the 2025 ceremony. Additionally, to make matters worse, each film got a spot in the Worst Picture category.

An atmosphere of violence and paranoia pervades Peter Fleischmann’s 1975 thriller Weak Spot from its opening shot, in which a nameless man commits suicide by jumping from a balcony rather than going with the military secret police. The nature of his suspected crime is never revealed, and when, just a few minutes later, Georgis (Ugo Tognazzi) is arrested on suspicion of conspiring with a political subversive merely because of his reaction when the man stepped on his foot, it’s clear that truth and justice are malleable in the hands of these secret police.

Weak Spot is set during a seven-year period in Greece that began with its right-wing military junta putting a group of power-hungry colonels in charge of the country. And while it’s focused on the sense of fear, disorientation, and mistrust that accompanied this period of scaremongering and rampant torture of innocents, the film is too...

The collection "Rewind and Play: Music Documentaries" is now showing exclusively on Mubi.Cinema is a principal part of our sensory education. Its images, sounds, and music intertwine in our memory, often to the point that we can no longer separate them.In the third season of Mubi Podcast: Voci Italiane Contemporanee, the journalist, music critic, author, and sound selector Giulia Cavaliere takes us through five conversations to investigate the points of contact between what we see and what we hear.The latest episode of the podcast was recorded live at the first edition of Mubi Fest in Milan. Giulia Cavaliere interviews Francesco Bianconi, frontman of Baustelle, who leads us on a journey through the indissoluble bond between sound and image and the ways it has made itself felt in his life. This episode is dedicated to the emotional power of soundtracks, starting with the music of Ennio Morricone and...

Every culture puts its own unique spin on horror tropes, with people from different times and places being frightened by different things. One of the most fascinating examples of this occurred during the 60s-70s in Italy, with a group of genre filmmakers collectively deciding that, to them, horror meant gory whodunnits with surreal visuals and blood that looked more like paint than corn syrup.

And while that initial Giallo movement has long since faded into obscurity (with modern audiences being less receptive to obvious dubbing and cheesy practical effects), there are still some intrepid filmmakers out there who are attempting to keep the spirit of the genre alive with neo-Giallo productions meant to remind us that horror movies don’t always have to be realistic. And in honor of these stylishly retro features, we’ve decided to come up with a list celebrating six modern-day Giallo flicks for your viewing pleasure.

We hear all the time that a movie starts on the page, and while this is true in an overarching sense, for practical purposes, the process of making a motion picture intended to screen in theaters or stream into living rooms starts when you've raised enough money to hire the actors and crew and so on required to get that page-bound vision before a camera. It's at this point that you begin fretting about getting a return on your investment and, just maybe, turning a profit. In this sense, all filmmaking is risk-taking.

This is the movie business, and it didn't used to be of widespread public interest. Once in a blue moon, people would be aware that a film like Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "Cleopatra" cost a studio-devouring amount of money; meanwhile, they could tell "The Exorcist," "Jaws" and "Star Wars" were making scads of money because they could...

The collection "Rewind and Play: Music Documentaries" is now showing exclusively on Mubi.Cinema is a principle part of our sensory education. Its images, sounds, and music intertwine in our memory, often to the point that we can no longer separate them.In the third season of Mubi Podcast: Voci Italiane Contemporanee, the journalist, music critic, author, and sound selector Giulia Cavaliere takes us through five conversations to investigate the points of contact between what we see and what we hear.In this first episode, Giulia Cavaliere talks with Jacopo Incani, alias Iosonouncane, one of the most innovative artists on the Italian music scene, supervisor of soundtracks for films such as The Great Ambition (2024) and The Last Days of Humanity (2022).Through personal stories and anecdotes, they reflect on the importance of music in cinema and in life, from John Williams to Ennio Morricone, in understanding the world and ourselves. Their...

The Western genre as people know it today owes everything to Sergio Leone's movies. Despite Leone's works being nearly half a century old as of this writing, the filmmaker's influence can still be felt in just about every facet of the cinematic cowboy and those who followed in their footsteps. No other movie of his represents his irreplaceable contributions to cinema the way Once Upon a Time in the West does.

The movie is a cinematic masterpiece, even if it's somewhat underrated in the zeitgeist if only because it was made in the shadow of Leone's legendary trifecta of Clint Eastwood movies. Even so, Leone's epic Spaghetti Western forever changed the Wild West and its resident gunslingers. Believe it or not, Once Upon a Time in the West accomplished this in its opening minutes with nary a spoken word of dialogue.

Once Upon a Time in the West...

When it comes to the cowboy cool of the Western genre, there might not be anyone who's done it better than Clint Eastwood. Sure, there's the Duke, John Wayne, but he brought a different kind of old-school cool to his characters, whereas Eastwood had more of an edge in his heyday. He starred as the Man With No Name in Italian director Sergio Leone's "Dollars" trilogy, cementing himself as a Western legend with very little dialogue and a whole lot of steely glares. He would go on to direct his own films, including his classic 1992 Western "Unforgiven," the morally complex tale of a former outlaw. He's only continued working as an actor and director into his 90s, having released his latest (and possibly last) directorial effort, "Juror #2," in November 2024, and though he's had some ups and downs, he's mostly managed to keep his legendary status as a filmmaker intact.

When it's not getting review bombed by angry fans, IMDb is a fountain of filmic knowledge that has all the answers. Besides being the solution to every movie section at Trivia Night, the Internet Movie Database also has a list of the top 250 films of all time, as decided by Hollywood's toughest judges -- the general audience. It's a ranking that is crammed with unquestionably brilliant films, but it's also a pretty big pile to get through. 240 of these popular picks are all well and good, but let's not kid ourselves. It's the top 10 on the list that are what we always want to get to.

IMDb's top 10 consist of some absolutely essential viewings not just for die-hard cinephiles, but anyone that is in the mood to sit down for a certified banger that hasn't lost its touch. With the youngest entrant on the list being just over a decade old,...

In 1975, George Kennedy starred in an unusual revenge thriller in which AI was used to catch the bad guys. A look back at The ‘Human’ Factor:

Revenge films and vigilantes were all over the place in the 1970s, whether it was Charles Bronson’s Paul Kersey gunning down crooks in Death Wish (1974) or Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle going on a rampage in Taxi Driver (1976). One of the more unusual thrillers of its type from the era, though, was The ‘Human’ Factor from 1975. For one thing, there’s its high-tech premise, in which George Kennedy’s protagonist uses cutting-edge technology to track down his enemies.

Kennedy plays John Kinsdale, a middle-aged, American computer expert stationed in Naples. Each day, he says goodbye to his picture-perfect Nuclear family – wife, two sons, a daughter with an outsized clown doll – and drives to his workplace at a nearby NATO base. There,...

“The Last Rifleman” is a moving story about memory, loss, and forgiveness set against the soft background of war memories. The movie is set against the 75th anniversary of D-Day and follows Artie Crawford, a 92-year-old World War II veteran from Belfast whose drive is stronger than his weak body might suggest.

Pierce Brosnan gives Artie a lot of depth, going from being a man living in a nursing home to a man on a very personal journey. Artie decides to leave his care facility and go to Normandy, even though doctors and the facility say he shouldn’t because he has recently lost his wife and is having a hard time with the weight of his memories. Maggie, his beloved wife, died recently after a long illness with dementia. She left him with a heavy emotional load and a strong sense of being alone.

The story unfolds like a delicate road trip,...

The 1960s were a great time for stylish heist movies, with many classics which are still loved by fans decades later. The heist genre initially sprung out of film noir, but it gradually developed its own identity, and it came to encompass romantic comedies, action thrillers and even spy movies. The 1960s marked a boom for the genre, after films like Rififi and The Killing brought about a new wave of enthusiasm in the 1950s.

Heist movies in the 1970s got much grittier and darker, in line with the trends of New Hollywood. By contrast, the 1960s delivered some more stylish and lighthearted capers, such as Ocean's 11 and How to Steal a Million. This era was defined by suave thieves pulling off intricately plotted heists, and there wasn't much of the violence and bloodshed that's usually associated with crime movies.

Related 20 Best Heist Movies Of All Time, Ranked

The...

Celine Dion paid her respects to the legendary producer Quincy Jones. On Tuesday, she reflected on his mentorship and the cherished moments the two spent in the recording studio.

“I am heartbroken to learn of the passing of my friend, the one and only musical genius, Quincy Jones,” Dion wrote in an Instagram post. “Quincy touched my world as both a cherished mentor and as also as someone I looked up to for his deep impact on virtually every form of American music.”

View this post on Instagram

A post...

John Williams is obviously and without question one of the greatest film composers who’s ever lived, but that still feels like something of an understatement. The case could be made that no one in his field — from Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann to Ennio Morricone and Toru Takemitsu — has come remotely close to matching the sheer breadth, diversity, and cultural impact of Williams’ contributions to the cinema. Indeed, Williams’ greatness is so obvious and self-evident that Laurent Bouzereau’s lovingly basic documentary about him only needs to sit back, shut up, and let the music do the talking. After all, what else is there to say about a 92-year-old workaholic who claims that his inspiration comes to him from the sky? How do you interrogate what Steven Spielberg refers to as “the purest form of artistic expression I’ve ever experienced from a human being?”

A richer and more...

The standoff in the climactic showdown between Clint Eastwood, his scene stealer co-star Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach's characters in Sergio Leone's 1966 epic spaghetti Western masterpiece The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is arguably the most unforgettable in cinematic history. Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes, the respective characters of the three legends, continue to live on in the hearts of fans over fifty years later. At the mention of the film, it's inevitable to picture their extreme close-ups, juxtaposed with long shots of the sweeping landscape of an eerie, circular graveyard. You'll remember how, for minutes, the tension escalated with Ennio Morricone's magical score in the background, without a word being spoken between the three. What may not be known to some is that the sprawling 5,000-capacity graveyard, Sad Hill Cemetery, was a set built from scratch by Spanish soldiers, commissioned by Sergio Leone. Located near Burgos,...

Miles away from the sparkling dance-pop hit “Latch” featuring Sam Smith, Disclosure released the darkly textured track “Arachnids” on Friday. Disclosure, made up of brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence, also released a stripped-back music video featuring fans breaking into dance as they listen to the shape-shifting single.

Written and produced by Guy, he described “Arachnids” as “an ever-evolving creative puzzle of sound design and groove exploration,” which took months to arrange. A 10-minute drum machine jam served as the spine of the single, while ethereal vocal effects and warped synths offered additional support.

Studiocanal have released a fantastic new 4K restoration of Orca, The Killer Whale, as part of the Cult Classics Collection. Terror is just below the surface in this ferocious action adventure of mythical proportions from legendary producer Dino De Laurentiis, starring screen legends Richard Harris (Oscar-nominated for This Sporting Life) and Charlotte Rampling (Oscar nominated for 45 Years). As well as a collectable 4K Uhd SteelBook, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital.

From Academy Award nominated director Michael Anderson (Around The World In Eighty Days) and screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni comes a gripping and terrifying tale of man versus beast. Described by Scream Magazine as ‘Jaws with heart’, Orca, The Killer Whale features a marvellous lead performance from Harris as a sea captain targeted by a vengeful killer whale, and also stars Will Sampson, famous for his performance as in Chief Bromden One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bo Derek (“10”), and Robert Carradine...

To celebrate the release of Exorcist II: The Heretic – out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video – we have a copy up for grabs!

From John Boorman, the director of Point Blank and Deliverance, comes Exorcist II: The Heretic, a visionary metaphysical thriller that confounded audience expectation by delivering something unique and entirely unexpected.

It has been four years since the exorcism that saved the life of Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) and caused the deaths of Lankester Merrin (Max Von Sydow) and Damien Karras, the priests who helped her. Regan remembers nothing, but her therapist Dr Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) believes those memories are simply repressed and waiting. Meanwhile, Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) – his own faith shaken by a failed exorcism – is tasked by the Vatican with investigating Father Merrin, who faces posthumous charges of heresy for his controversial writings. His investigation will lead him to Africa, New York and Georgetown...

To celebrate the release of Exorcist II: The Heretic – out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video – we have a copy up for grabs!

From John Boorman, the director of Point Blank and Deliverance, comes Exorcist II: The Heretic, a visionary metaphysical thriller that confounded audience expectation by delivering something unique and entirely unexpected.

It has been four years since the exorcism that saved the life of Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) and caused the deaths of Lankester Merrin (Max Von Sydow) and Damien Karras, the priests who helped her. Regan remembers nothing, but her therapist Dr Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) believes those memories are simply repressed and waiting. Meanwhile, Father Philip Lamont (Richard Burton) – his own faith shaken by a failed exorcism – is tasked by the Vatican with investigating Father Merrin, who faces posthumous charges of heresy for his controversial writings. His investigation will lead him to Africa, New York and Georgetown...

Of all the below-the-line categories at the Oscars, Best Original Score is the most difficult to predict early on due to the finicky nature of the music branch of the academy. Scores that sound like frontrunners are disqualified for a variety of reasons, from the number of credited composers to the amount of previously recorded music used. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2025 Oscar predictions for Best Original Score.)

Starting with the 2019 Oscars, the academy released a shortlist of 15 contenders. We got this year’s roster of semi-finalists on December 17, 2024. A second round of voting by the members of the music branch, again using preferential voting, will cut these 15 down to the final five nominees. These will be announced, along with the final contenders in all of the other competitive categories on January 17. The entire voting membership of the academy will then vote for the winners, which will be revealed...

The Exorcist is my choice for the best horror movie of all time. Some may say Rosemary’s Baby or The Shining or Night of the Living Dead, but as a good Catholic boy, nothing has ever gotten under my skin the way William Friedkin’s original did. But, with great success comes the desire for Hollywood to make a hit into a franchise, but Friedkin was not a franchise director. He famously turned down French Connection II, but the studio, perhaps noticing how the second French Connection turned out decently, decided to go ahead and turn it into a franchise. Still, the results, with one notable exception were a disaster. So without any further adieu, here’s our list of Exorcist movies ranked – from worst to best.

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

So, worst is a degree here rather than a black-and-white fact. All of the Exorcist sequels – with that one...

The Spaghetti Western genre refers to a wave of Western films produced in Italy and a few other European countries between the 1950s and the 1970s. These movies utilize settings that are similar to American Westerns, but they have morally ambiguous or completely evil main characters. Instead of heroes fighting villains and saving damsels in distress in the new frontier, these European Westerns use the genre's settings to create action dramas about a wider variety of plots.

Sergio Leone remains the most popular director of Spaghetti Westerns, and his movies like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly are mentioned more often than any other film in the genre. And yet, there are several Westerns made by other filmmakers that fans of the genre must watch. Fernando Cerchio's The Tired Outlaw is a movie released before Sergio Leone's debut that exemplifies the parody comedy style of the early European Westerns,...

Writer and director Quentin Tarantino is a well-known true-blue cinephile, a deeply devoted fan of films from a variety of genres and eras. He's a fan of everything from sleazy grindhouse exploitation films to classic westerns like the films of Howard Hawks, and he wears his influences loudly and proudly in his own films. So when asked about his favorite films of all time, he has different answers depending on how he feels. There is one movie that he claims to always include in his favorites, however, and he's been pretty effusive about his love for it on more than one occasion.

In an interview with The Talks, Tarantino shared his favorite three films (at that particular moment) and explained that even though two of his top three might shuffle around, he will always feel the need to share his love for the Sergio Leone spaghetti western "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

What do you get when you cross a glossy all-star business drama with a kinky Italian horror flick, a German crime procedural, and “Fiddler on the Roof?” That insane mix may sound too good to be true, but it’s not — it’s a movie that actually exists. It’s called “Bloodline,” it was released by Paramount in 1979, and after years of intermittent accessibility on home video, it’s now available in a beautiful Blu-ray edition from the boutique label Vinegar Syndrome.

At the time of its release, “Bloodline” wasn’t a success by any criteria, but it was a major release thanks to an international cast consisting of Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, James Mason, Romy Schneider, Omar Sharif, Beatrice Straight (just a few years after her Oscar-winning turn in “Network”), Irene Papas and others. The fact that it was based on a novel by bestselling author Sidney Sheldon — who...

The Man with No Name is one of Clint Eastwoods career-defining roles. The drifter and bounty hunter appears throughout Sergio Leones Dollars Trilogy, taking the nicknames "Joe," "Manco." and "Blondie." The character's adventures collect cash rewards, retrieve gold buried in Sad Hill Cemetery, bring peace to the town of San Miguel, and help eliminate the notorious outlaw El Indio. The hero also exhibits all the characteristics of a perfect Western movie protagonist. He has a quick draw, he doesn't talk much, he is independent, and is known for his moral ambiguity.

While The Man with no Name is great in A Fistful of Dollars and A Few Dollars More, he truly comes to life in The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, where he teams up with the bandit, Tuco (Eli Wallach), and navigates the chaos of the American Civil War to recover a cache of gold that is buried in an unmarked grave.

It’s been wild to watch the rise of William Apostol, a.k.a. Billy Strings, a bluegrass prodigy turned crossover star like fellow genre travelers Alison Krauss and Chris Stapleton — but one who’s found a home in Jambandlandia, where his super-sick flatpicking guitar virtuosity has met with big fat dancing bear-hugs. Leaning into long instrumental journeys onstage (see last year’s 38-minute single, an epic live sequence of “Meet Me at the Creek” > “Pyramid Country” > “Must Be Seven” > “Meet Me at the Creek”), Strings’ original songs have proved solid jam vehicles.

Alberto De Martino’s The Antichrist is easy to dismiss as a shameless rip-off of The Exorcist. But that would be to diminish the stylistic verve that De Martino brings to the project. In fact, aside from the more overt story elements relating to the occult, De Martino’s direction owes more to other Euro contemporaries like Walerian Borowczyk and Sergio Martino than to William Friedkin.

Densely plotted, if overlong, The Antichrist proves more enamored with matters of sexual repression than demonic possession. As the film opens, Ippolita (Carla Gravina) attends a madhouse religious ceremony—featuring snakes, writhing bodies, and a possessed man (Ernesto Colli) who hurls himself from a cliff to his death—alongside her aristocratic father (Mel Ferrer), in an effort to try and walk again. She’s been paralyzed since she was 12, the result of a car accident that also killed her mother. Needless to say, her...

“Euthanizer” director Teemu Nikki will walk down “Memory Lane” next, making his English-language debut.

In the film, a thirtysomething actress is hired by a company called Memory Lane. But she has to keep things secret, even though business is booming. They are replacing bad memories with good ones.

“The thing is, you have to shoot it first in a studio, like a TV show, with real-life actors reenacting the scenes. You are not supposed to meet the clients, but she does – on a blind date,” reveals Nikki.

“Unaware, he tells her: ‘I am sure it will work out. You look exactly like my mother.’”

“We have been working on this concept for some time now. At one point, it was called ‘The Way Too Expensive Teemu Nikki Feature,’” jokes producer Jani Pösö of It’s Alive Films. “Memory Lane” is a working title.

Italy’s I Wonder Pictures – It’s Alive...

It is borderline impossible to define the six-decade-long artistic legacy that Clint Eastwood had painstakingly mapped, as his stacked filmography includes everything from certified classics to overlooked gems. Of course, no artist can have an impeccably perfect run, but some, like Eastwood, inch very close to that ideal by re-defining entire genres that will always have a place in cinematic history. Not every good film that Eastwood helmed or starred in made a ton of money at the box office, but artistic success cannot be solely measured via such narrow metrics, as his name is embedded into the public consciousness, for better or worse.

It is tempting to dissect Eastwood's artistry purely through the Western genre — works like "A Fistful of Dollars" or "The Outlaw Josey Wales" capture his contributions succinctly — but there is much more to him than a drawling accent or laidback gunslinging. The actor has often been...

Sean Connery made his best movie outside the James Bond franchise when he paired up with Kevin Costner to take down Al Capone in Brian De Palmas Prohibition-era gangster thriller The Untouchables. Connery became the first actor to play Bond on the big screen when he starred in 1962s Dr. No. The character was already a literary icon, but Connery was responsible for making Ian Flemings gentleman spy a beloved staple of the silver screen. He played 007 in five more official Eon productions and one unofficial non-Eon production, 1983s Never Say Never Again.

While Bond is undoubtedly Connerys most iconic role, he had a very prolific career outside the Bond franchise, too. He worked in a wide range of genres under the direction of such renowned filmmakers as Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, John Huston, and Sidney Lumet. From an Agatha Christie murder mystery to a submarine thriller from the director of Die Hard,...

If there's one thing we know about the alien known only as The Thing, it's that it can appear as just about any living being that it wants to. In that spirit, it's no big surprise that the role of R.J. MacReady, the resident helicopter pilot of Outpost 31, was one that could've gone to any number of actors when director John Carpenter was developing "The Thing" at Universal Pictures in the early '80s. On the other hand, this fact may come as a surprise to those who hadn't realized other actors were in the running for the part, given that the role eventually went to one of Carpenter's muses: Kurt Russell. The marriage of Russell, Carpenter, and MacReady seems so natural in hindsight that it's wild to think about anyone else playing the part.

Even more surprising is Carpenter's admission that Russell wasn't his first choice for MacReady. There...

A World of Timeless Musicians Since long before the days of film, there have been countless great composers throughout history; people who have a true ear for music and have been able to write and produce melodies that have gone on to be remembered for generations to come. Such individuals include Beethoven, Georges Bizet, Krzysztof Penderecki, Ennio Morricone, and John Williams. However, today I’d like to honor a composer that was taken from us far too soon, a man by the name of James Horner. Background James Horner was born on August 14, 1953 in Los Angeles, California. His father, Harry Horner had previously moved to the United States to work in theater as a set designer and art director. Meanwhile, his brother Christopher Horner, born two years later, would go on to write and film a few documentaries, including a 2004 feature titled ‘The Disappearing of Tuvalu: Trouble in Paradise.’ As for James Horner himself,...

For a Few Dollars More (1965) begins with a lone rider on the twilit plain somewhere in America. A shot rings out, and the rider's limp body falls from the horse. Leone's grim, prefatory joke is a strikingly crass reminder -- for those who may have forgotten the central conceit of A Fistful of Dollars (1964) -- that life is worth only as much as the bounty ascribed to it. A hand-drawn gale whips across the cracked earth, forming the block-lettered credits, accompanied by Ennio Morricone's score, gravely sparse with jaw harp and whistle, peppered with gunshots. Leone took a shoestring budget and made a masterpiece of anarchic fury, so he's done something quite extraordinary for a few dollars more.

Before the bloody meal begins, an epigraph: "Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared." The first bounty killer, or hunter,...

Demi Moore is getting her due thanks to Metrograph.

The “Substance” actress and Hollywood icon is being honored by Metrograph with a five-film series of Moore’s most beloved features, as curated by the theater. Titled “We Want Moore,” the mini festival begins September 13.

“The rapturous reception of Demi Moore’s performance in Coralie Fargeat’s ‘The Substance’ at this year’s Cannes Film Festival seems to have reminded many people that the New Mexico-born actress is a bona fide movie star — not just in terms of box office receipts and magazine cover shoots, but in her seemingly effortless ability to command the screen every time she walks into frame,” the Metrograph press statement reads. “In ‘We Want Moore,’ we’ve brought together some other timely reminders.”

Selected films screening in 35mm include Moore’s iconic turns in “Ghost,” “Indecent Proposal,” and “Striptease,” which Moore recently told Variety was one of her most under-appreciated performances.