At the midpoint of AFI FEST, we're winding down on the film festival season proper, making way for the awards-driven fests like SCAD Savannah, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs that exist less to present films and more about tributes, honors and non-competitive trophies with names like 'virtuoso,' 'visionary,' and 'vanguard' that exist as one of many stops on campaigns ahead of and during crucial voting periods for both critics and industry awards.

There’s been a lot of talk about Materialists. That in and of itself isn’t especially surprising. After all, it is the follow-up to filmmaker Celine Song’s Oscar-nominated debut, Past Lives, starring three of Hollywood’s most visible stars. (Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal all have the distinct notice of releasing multiple films within the space of a few months.) It was also a sizable box office hit, with a global haul of $104 million, making it A24’s third-largest hit ever and the year’s highest-grossing independent film.

The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced today that Noah Baumbach, for his work on Netflix’s Jay Kelly, will receive the Gotham Director Tribute at the 35th Annual Gotham Film Awards Ceremony, taking place on Monday, December 1, 2025 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. “As a three-time Gotham Award winner and five-time nominee, Noah Baumbach is one of our most beloved filmmakers,” said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham Film & Media Institute. 

All aboard! The October Best Actor race is chugging along and this month Joel Edgerton makes a major move in what feels like Netflix's sleeper hit this season, Train Dreams. After debuting at Sundance at the beginning of the year, Netflix picked up Train Dreams just days before the end of the festival for a reported deal in the "high-teen millions." But the streamer, with a handful of high-profile titles coming to Venice and Telluride (as well as those bought out of Cannes), kept the profile of…

Welcome to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter attempt to breakdown, analyze, and ultimately, get inside the mind of some of cinema’s greatest auteurs. In doing so, they will look at their filmographies, explore what drives them artistically and what makes their decision making process so fascinating. Add in a few silly tangents and a fun game at the end of the episode and you’ve got yourself a podcast we truly hope you love.

Both the Internet and social media often serve as outlets for human connection. However, such platforms can simultaneously serve as a hellish dimension of questioned self-worth and, more alarmingly, parasociality. Two horror films in particular dramatize the terrors of being chronically online in their own ways, with one leaning more into the selfhood theme and the other emphasizing the perils of chronic online obsession.

With the news that Warner Bros will be campaigning Chase Infiniti in Best Actress for One Battle After Another, she makes a solid first entrance on the chart at #6, just behind Amanda Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee, whose pickup by Searchlight Pictures boosts her chances significantly. With incremental moves for Kate Hudson in Song Sung Blue…

When is romance not actually romantic? This seems to be the question that BookTok Queen Colleen Hoover is most intent on exploring, at least on the basis of the cinematic adaptations of her work. It Ends With Us, last year’s adaptation of her most popular novel, followed Blake Lively’s improbably-named florist Lily Blossom Bloom as she grew to understand that the love of her life was just an abusive piece of shit.

For two nights in November 1990, my high school classmates and I were riveted and delightfully frightened by the TV event of the season: the two-part miniseries Stephen King’s IT. Even though we would collectively share the disappointment when the big scary monster turned out to be a giant spider, Tim Curry’s terrifying turn as Pennywise the Clown would stay with us for years.

It's hard not to look at the existing and upcoming roster of animated films for 2025 and not feel like it's one of the weakest in years. A handful of lazy sequels, very few high-profile original films, a significant Pixar flop and you have the makings of a pretty unexciting lineup this year. Which is what makes the genuinely organic phenomenon of Netflix's…

The Critics Choice Association (CCA) announced today the full slate of honorees for its 8th annual Celebration of Black Cinema & Television, taking place Tuesday, December 9, 2025, in Los Angeles. The event honors standout work both onscreen and offscreen from the Black entertainment community. Actor, musician, and comedian Jay Pharoah, known for his work on Saturday Night Live, his comedy special 

The Gotham Film & Media Institute announced today that Tessa Thompson, for her performance in Amazon MGM Studios’ Hedda, will receive the Spotlight Tribute at the 35th Annual Gotham Film Awards Ceremony, taking place on Monday, December 1, 2025 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. With this tribute, The Gotham will honor Tessa for her magnetic portrayal in Nia DaCosta’s 

Top L–R: Mysterious Skin, American DreamSecond Row L-R: Little Miss Sunshine, Downhill Racer, Half Nelson Bottom Row L-R: Humpday, House Party, Saw The Sundance Institute announced the Park City Legacy program for the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, celebrating the Festival’s rich history and shared experiences in Utah through archival and restoration screenings of iconic films from previous editions, artists talks with notable Festival alumni, and a special event for the community as Sundance enters its final year in Utah before its move to Boulder, Colorado for the 2027 edition.

Fifteen films in Documentary Feature and International Feature Film will be shortlisted for Oscar consideration on December 16. For doc precursors we have the nominations from Critics Choice and the shortlist for DOC NYC. As we have to mention every season, the Critics Choice curse in this category is still very strong for winners there but nominations give us a good jumping off point.

When I last spoke to production designer Florencia Martin, she had just finished working on Damien Chazelle’s wild 1920s-set Hollywood ride, Babylon. During our conversation, Martin spoke lovingly about her hometown of Los Angeles and its history, citing the importance of capturing the city’s raw imperfections alongside its storied past. Martin’s richly detailed work in Babylon earned her a much-deserved Academy Award nomination, and now, after recreating Los Angeles in the 1920s, the 1950s in Andrew Dominik’s…

The final day at the Middleburg Film Festival felt refreshingly low-key, a welcome breather after the whirlwind of films, panels, and parties. Don’t get me wrong, those days are fantastic, too. But by day four, it was nice to just sink into the silver screen, catching three films that were first-time viewings for me. Kicking things off was Bradley Cooper's newest directorial venture, …

The Cycle of Love and The Voice of Hind Rajab are top documentary and international winners, respectively The Middleburg Film Festival announced its 2025 Audience Award winners, recognizing the films that resonated most with filmgoers following the conclusion of the 13th annual, four-day festival on Sunday, October 19. MFF’s Saturday Centerpiece film Hamnet and the Closing Film Rental Family have tied for the Audience Award for Narrative Feature.

When you think of some of film history’s most iconic costumes, the work of Colleen Atwood likely comes to mind. From Hannibal Lecter’s chilling mask to Edward Scissorhands’ bladed fingers, Atwood has created some of the most enduring cinematic creations. What makes Atwood such a titan amongst her peers (and the industry as a whole) is that her detailed work illuminates the character wearing it, adding new facets that may have potentially gone unnoticed.

Not much to change in Adapted although I do wonder if No Other Choice and Bugonia mining some similar, or at least adjacent, territory and tone might bleed from each other, allowing Train Dreams to break in. For Original, I'm dropping Rental Family and moving The Testament of Ann Lee up. Feel mostly confident about the top four there but wonder how much a fight…

General Hospital was the big winner of the 52nd Daytime Emmy Awards, with seven wins including Outstanding Daytime Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Performance in a Daytime Drama Series: Actress for Nancy Lee Grahn, Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Daytime Drama Series: Actor for Jonathan Jackson, Outstanding Directing Team for a Daytime Drama Series and Outstanding Writing Team for a Daytime Drama Series.

The story of Christy Martin, nee Salters, surely wasn’t an easy or straightforward one to tell, yet its difficult and all too real subject matter makes for an eye-opening experience that ultimately showcases the power of perseverance, resilience, and love. David Michôd (The King) doesn’t shy away from the hardships this world-renowned boxer, in a transformative performance by Sydney Sweeney (HBO's…

I opened day three at Middleburg with one of their signature events: Talk Back to the Critics. Mae Abdulbaki (Screen Rant), Jen Chaney (NY Times), Tim Gordon (Keeping it Reel with FilmGordon), Roxana Hadadi (Vulture), Nell Minow (RogerEbert.com), and Travis Hopson (Punch Drunk Critics) made up an eclectic panel that led a conversation on all the great experiences they’ve had at Middleburg over the years, several of them attending since the start thirteen years ago.

Nestled in the rolling hills of Virginia's Loudoun County, the Middleburg Film Festival feels like a not-so-secret handshake among cinephiles from the South Atlantic states. Each year, it's easy to meet and speak to folks from all walks of life. Maryland day-trippers, North Carolinians on a fall getaway, West Virginians chasing the open road, and D.C. locals ditching the Beltway chaos and bustling of tourists.

Here is an exclusive first look at Academy Award winner Sissy Spacek and Robert Pattinson from Lynne Ramsay's latest film, Die My Love. The film world premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released theatrically by MUBI on November 7, 2025. In the film, Grace (Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence) and Jackson (Pattinson) move from New York City to rural Montana to have their first child. As her creative identity disappears under the pressures of motherhood, the banality of domestic life, and the terrors of desire, Grace begins to unravel.