It wouldn't be a proper Oscar season without an old controversy made new, would it? Earlier this week, the inaugural issue of the California Post dropped a bombshell about sexual impropriety on the set of the Safdie Brothers' 2017 film Good Time, starring Robert Pattinson. The article, written by Variety's Tatiana Siegel, opens the door wide on what was a previously known, but to an unclear and marginalized degree, of a 17-year old girl who was cast as a prostitute then subjected to intimacy coordinator-free nudity and sexual content via a convicted criminal who exposed himself to her asking if he could "stick it in," all while under Josh Safdie's purview and brother Benny on the sidelines.

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Today, the 2026 Sundance Film Festival announced the award-winning films, presented at a ceremony at The Ray Theatre in Park City, Utah. The ceremony was attended by the jury and artists receiving honors, in advance of the final day of the Festival on February 1, and its last in Park City, Utah before moving to Boulder, Colorado next year. Grand Jury Prizes went to 

On episode 137 of the Director Watch Podcast, co-hosts Ryan McQuade and Jay Ledbetter discuss the first film in their Chantal Akerman series, Je Tu Il Elle (1974). Welcome back to Director Watch! On this AwardsWatch podcast, the boys attempt to break down, 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.

Marty Supreme has won Best Picture from the Midnight Critics Circle (MCC) with star Timothée Chalamet also taking the Best Actor prize. It Was Just an Accident was a triple winner, with Best Director and Original Screenplay for Jafar Panahi and Best International Film. Panahi was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award from the group. Josh O'Connor (Wake Up Dead Man…

Probably the most exciting part of low-budget horror filmmaking is that the films tend to latch themselves onto one singular gimmick and take it to extreme, terrifying levels. The found footage subgenre proves this time and time again, starting from the phenomenon that was The Blair Witch Project, and then over the years, we see the subgenre revived in slightly different forms, from home video surveillance in…

Over the past twenty years, Ethan Hawke has become nearly as much a part of the Sundance culture as Robert Redford himself. From the Before trilogy to his own directorial achievements such as Blaze, Hawke is a staple in Park City and a fierce advocate for independent filmmakers. It is only fitting that his latest film, The Weight, directed by first timer Padraic McKinley, would premiere at Sundance’s final Utah festival.

The phrase “a love letter to…” has become such a cliché that it is almost meaningless nowadays, and yet, there is no more apt description of Noah Segan’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York than to say that it truly is a love letter to an evolving city, and an elegant eulogy of a place that now only exists in memory.

Some comedies are largely accessible, with great performances and a compelling story that not only keeps the laughs going but makes us come back to them again and again. And then there are comedies that are so absurd, so nonsensical, that you’re either on board with it or not at all. Such is the case with David Wain’s newest film, …

Jay Duplass’s latest feature, See You When I See You, feels light-years removed from the shaggy, conversational looseness that once defined Mumblecore. Where Duplass’s early work trafficked in halting speech, improvisatory intimacy, and the ache of small decisions, this film is somber, restrained, and conspicuously well-behaved: a sincere, if largely generic, account of a family coping with sudden and devastating loss.

Andrew Stanton’s career at Pixar once unfolded with the clean inevitability of a well-told parable. He directed A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, and WALL•E—films that married technological bravura to an almost old-fashioned humanism—and then, curiously, retreated to the small screen, where he has spent the past decade. His most recent feature, 2016’s Finding Dory, arrived in theaters around the same moment that Colby Day’s script for…

The nominations for the 76th Writers Guild of America (WGA) awards have been revealed in feature film, television, radio and news categories. For film, original screenplays for Black Bag, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, Marty Supreme, Sinners and Weapons were recognized while the adapted screenplay nominees mirrored the Oscar nominees exactly with Bugonia, Frankenstein…

As one of a select few genres to have sustained its theatrical audience post-pandemic, horror has become a major staple of the contemporary moviegoing culture. Yet horror has largely scared off Oscar gold, its artistic merits often minimized by detractors claiming it as more style than substance. However, last week’s Oscar nominations showed the genre leveling up in the awards conversation, coming a long way from previously being dismissed upon arrival.

The Sundance Film Festival has long been a place for emerging filmmakers to introduce themselves and their stories to friendly crowds who love quirky, weird independent films. In 2020, married writer/directors Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer brought their first feature Save Yourselves! to Park City, a comedy about a couple who goes offline to reconnect just as aliens invade the planet.

American Cinema Editors (ACE) announced today the nominations for the 76th Annual ACE Eddie Awards, recognizing outstanding editing in 14 categories of film, television, documentaries, and for the first time in ACE Eddies history, shorts and digital content. The winners will be announced during the ACE Eddie Awards on Friday, February 27, 2026 at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Of the ten nominated features (ACE splits comedy and drama), all five Oscar nominees are represented here: …

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another leads the nominations for theh 79th BAFTA film Awards 14, just two shy of the record set by Gandhi and on par with previous leaders like All Quiet on the Western Front, Atonement, The King’s Speech and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Along with nominations for Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Anderson, Supporting Actress for Teyana Taylor and Leading Actor for Leonardo DiCaprio (more on him in a bit), Rising Star nominee Chase Infiniti is nominated for Leading Actress.

The Directors Guild of America today announced that actor, comedian, writer, and producer Kumail Nanjiani will host the 78th Annual DGA Awards on Saturday, February 7, 2026, to be held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Nanjiani is an Oscar, Golden Globe, and Emmy-nominated writer and acclaimed actor and comedian. He is best known for his work in film and television including…

Romantic partnerships are rife with stories to tell and emotions to explore. This is why there are endless movies about them. People longing for love, finding love, losing it, moving on from it. More than 100 years of cinematic relationships make it challenging to stand out and say something fresh. But this is just what Olivia Wilde achieves with her new film, …

The last week for the first month of 2026 is carried by three anticipated releases from the most prestigious physical media distributor, Criterion Collection, with the arrival of Birth, House Party, and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) on 4K. In Oscar nominee Jonathan Glazer’s second feature film, Birth is a chilling cinematic examination of how love lingers long after some has physically gone, a widow still mourning the death of her husband a decade earlier when she meets a ten-year-old boy who claims to be his reincarnation—leading her into a wrenching confrontation with her own unresolved grief and desires.

It’s a topsy-turvy season, with BAFTA nominations coming after Oscar nominations for the first time since 2001 (an era when the BAFTA Awards were also after the Academy Awards), but that makes it all the more fun. With the Oscar nominations last week, we saw Sinners make Academy history with a record-setting 16 nominations, followed by One Battle After Another…

While Sam Raimi has helmed two films since 2009’s Drag Me to Hell, it's hard to say the horror auteur’s signature filmmaking personality has been present since. One would be hard-pressed to deem Oz the Great and Powerful and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness tremendous uses of Raimi’s time and talent. Fortunately, 2026 sees Raimi escaping the purgatory of Disney IP and returning to the realm of horror-comedy with…

The North Carolina Film Critics Association (NCFCA) have announced their winners representing the best in film for 2025. Ryan Coogler's Sinners was named Best Narrative Film, with Coogler winning Best Director and Best Original Screenplay among its 10 wins overall. In acting, Micheal B. Jordan (Sinners) and Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) took the leads wins while Jacob Elordi (

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has won Best Picture and Best Director at this year’s Online Film Critics Society, also winning Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Editing. But, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners leads the overall winners list with 10 awards, including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Score.  Comprised of nearly 300 voting members from around the world, the Online Film Critics Society was founded in 1997.

The world of modern art is enigmatic and inaccessible to some, a way of life for others. Rotating exhibitions at museums of modern art may draw crowds of culturally curious onlookers, but there is a very small and specific community that gather to bid on a self-destructing Banksy or a banana duct-taped to a wall, two notable works referenced in Cathy Yan’s funny, biting satire…