This article contains massive Nosferatu spoilers. Judging by his filmography, it’s probably safe to say Robert Eggers is not strictly a religious man. His first film did, after all, end with a Puritan girl finding liberation from her Calvinist upbringing by selling her soul to the Devil and floating above a fire fed by the fat of her siblings’ flesh. And that’s the happiest finale thus far to an Eggers joint. With those humble beginnings, the influence of religion, tradition, and magic would continue to course throughout all four of Eggers’ feature films to date, from his malevolent exploration of…

There are some Nosferatu spoilers in this article. Among the of the many impressive things about Robert Eggers‘ Nosferatu is how the marketing team kept the look of its main monster a secret. In posters and trailers, Eggers and his team used shadows and silhouettes to suggest the presence of the vampire Count Orlok, building on the visual style set by German Expressionist F.W. Murnau, who directed the original Nosferatu in 1922. That sense of mystery pays off with the reveal of Orlok in the film. A grotesque beast, furs draped over his hideous body, Orlock glowers from under a…

Christopher Nolan has taken viewers from the streets of Gotham City to the shores of Dunkirk, and from the deepest recesses of the dreaming mind to the edges of a black hole itself. Yet the announcement of his latest project has raised more than a few eyebrows. Homer’s Ancient Greek epic The Odyssey seems like a strange choice for a filmmaker who has devoted his work to puzzle box stories about troubled great men. As different as The Odyssey might be for Nolan, we do already know we can count on one thing. He’ll have a great cast joining him…

Even if you’ve never seen the 1994 film adaptation of Street Fighter, you probably know about one scene; a legend on the internet. M. Bison, a military dictator and the primary villain of the games and the movie, listens as his captive Chun-Li (Ming-Na Wen) explains her desire for revenge. Chun-Li remembers her father leading a band of farmers against Bison’s nascent army, driving them out of the village, but at the cost of his life. Chun-Li savors every word of her speech, pausing to scoff at her recollection of Bison’s thugs running from peasants, and even at his shooting…

This article contains spoilers for Nosferatu. Anyone who sees Willem Dafoe‘s name in the cast list for Robert Eggers‘s Nosferatu thinks they know what to expect. Dafoe has worked with Eggers in the director’s two most recent films, giving gonzo performances in each. In The Lighthouse, Dafoe channels Patchy the Pirate to deliver ornate curses when his fellow lighthouse keeper insults his lobster. Dafoe plays a Norse magician in The Northman, urging the king and the prince to act like dogs, scrambling around on all fours and farting wildly. Given that his character in Nosferatu, Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz,…

This article contains major spoilers for Robert Eggers’  Nosferatu. It is only in Nosferatu’s final breath that the film’s lighting at last appears golden, pure, and radiant to behold. There at the end of all things and inside the Hutter bedroom—which like previous Nosferatu films is marred by the repression of its period and two separate twin beds for a newlywed couple—goodness has again won out over the dark. The morning dawn bathes a world previously defined by shadow and gloom with every shade of rose and resplendency; and a cold home glows. Somehow though, this warmth makes the final…

In James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet fingerpicks the tussle-haired troubadour’s guitar and stands inside Bob Dylan’s shoes. But those bootheels wander through a tangle of folk tales about the ambitious young singer’s life from 1961 to 1965 in New York’s Greenwich Village. During the film, Dylan tells girlfriend Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), a pseudonym for the late Suze Rotolo (seen on the cover of Dylan’s Freewheelin’ album): “People make up their past, Sylvie. They remember what they want. They forget the rest.” Bob Dylan is a master of making up past histories and self-mythology. In a January 1961…

Gift-giving scenes are often the most emotional in a festive movie or TV special. They’re usually a quiet moment among the madness, when one character shows another how cherished they are, and why they needn’t have obsessed about the turkey or the decorations or their missing Christmas bonus, because what truly matters at Christmas is love, as shown via the medium of a present. Handmade, sentimental or extravagant, screen gifts are a highlight… …which is why we want to steal them. Below are the movie and TV gifts our writers want to reach into the screen to grab for themselves.…

… But why is he a monkey? It’s the inevitable question asked by any person who has seen the trailer, or for that matter a TikTok reel, of Better Man, the new left-handed biopic about British pop star Robbie Williams. And even as one begins watching this sardonic portrait of the ‘90s pop music scene in the UK, it’s still not immediately clear why the creative choice was made. Director Michael Gracey has told the press it’s simply due to recognizing how Williams sees himself: a dancing monkey bounding around the stage for our entertainment. Yet there is more at…

Yes, yes, it’s better to give than to receive, but in these few, special cases, receiving wins out. That’s because the below are a different class of givers – they’re fictional for a start, some of them have magical powers, and at least one of them is a bear.  These are the movie or TV characters we hope would pick our names out of the hat in the annual Secret Santa draw because we imagine that their choice of gift would suit us down to the ground. Maybe they’re extra thoughtful, or extra loaded, or extra in tune with our…

The Warriors is incredibly cinematic material. After all, the 1965 novel by Sol Yurick about a New York City street gang attempting to survive the night while traveling from the Bronx to Coney Island was turned into a great movie in 1979; a seedy cult classic directed by Walter Hill and which made phrases like, “Warriors, come out and play-yay,” into all-time bangers to a generation of moviegoers. Lin-Manuel Miranda would know, he grew up loving that line and the movie as a child. So much so he adapted the material alongside playwright and musician Eisa Davis into the first (possibly)…

Everybody loves Jason Nesmith. At least, that’s what Jason Nesmith thinks. As the star of the long canceled sci-fi show, Galaxy Quest, Jason regularly enters to cheers from crowds of admirers, even if they’re really cheering for his character, Commander Peter Quincy Taggart of the NSEA Protector. But behind the closed door of a men’s room stall, Nesmith learns the truth. In a convention hall bathroom, Jason overhears two guys mock their fellow attendees, the Galaxy Quest cast, and especially Nesmith. Actor Tim Allen lets the sadness mix with the dawning on his face, the first of many realizations that…

I’ll admit it, I would probably watch an entire TV series that was just about James Bond’s housekeeper. Did you not know he has one? Oh, well, let me tell you about May, this funny lady who looks after Bond’s apartment in the original novels. She’s Scottish. She’s old. She knows how to cook an egg. Aren’t you riveted? Don’t you want an entire show just about May? Here’s the thing, as a Bond nerd I do want a show about May, Miss Moneypenny, or M’s random friends. I also love Kim Sherwood’s Double-O books, all about agents in the…

Want more exclusive breakdowns as we publish them? Be the first to receive them directly in your inbox by signing up for our FREE newsletter. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the emotionally packed first trailer for James Gunn‘s highly anticipated Superman film, which hits theaters on July 11, 2025. The wordless teaser quickly establishes the grounded yet fantastical world that Gunn has been promising.  The first teaser trailer is filled with exciting moments, rad character reveals, and surprisingly it begins with an injured Superman being thrown into the snowy wastelands that hide the Fortress of…

This article contains spoilers for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Ow! The edge! Sonic the Hedgehog 3 brings another fan-favorite character to the big screen series, a character that may be baffling to those not steeped in Sonic love. In addition to dealing with two Robotniks, regular nemesis Ivo and now grandfather Gerald (both played by Jim Carrey), Sonic must match wits with Shadow the Hedgehog (voiced by Keanu Reeves). Shadow might look like Sonic, but he has a very different attitude. Sullen and harsh, Shadow focuses only on his mission of revenge. Over the course of the movie, we get…

Only a single tear rolls down his cheek. In perhaps the most emotionally harrowing and poignant moment of Edward Zwick’s Glory (at least this side of Fort Wagner), it is this lonely drop of water descending Denzel Washington’s face that breaks viewers. It is even easy to mistake the tear as what won Washington his first of two Oscars (so far). Hence why some have dubbed the moment his “signature move,” a claim Washington has forcefully and rightly dismissed. And yet, it isn’t the tear that makes the scene of Private Silas Trip’s flogging so heartbreaking; it’s everything else Washington…

This article contains spoilers for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Sonic saves the day. Even if you keep drowning in Chemical Zone and throwing your old Sega Genesis controller across the room, you know that every Sonic the Hedgehog story ends with the Blue Blur triumphant and Robotnik defeated. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is no different. By the end of his third big screen outing, Sonic (Ben Schwartz) befriends new antagonist Shadow the Hedgehog (Keanu Reeves) and stops Gerald Robotnik and his grandson Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik (both played by Jim Carrey, hammy as ever) from blowing up the world. Sonic even…

Jack Huston knew if he ever directed a movie, it would not simply be something he wanted to make. It would be something he needed to pursue. An idea which loomed so large and for so long in his mind’s eye that only he could bring it to life. And, perhaps fittingly, it might have begun with an image that never left him in all the years and days which passed since he played the soulful hitman Richard Harrow on Boardwalk Empire. It began on a New Jersey set and with a co-star pounding away on a sack filled with…

Lin-Manuel Miranda has heard the criticism before. As some cynics on the internet have repeated, the songwriter and actor who gave the world In the Heights and Hamilton supposedly cannot write a villain song. It’s an odd take since he previously submitted the delightfully decadent “Shiny” in Moana—and we’d argue Aaron Burr’s jazzy barnburner, “The Room Where It Happens,” isn’t exactly an epiphany for good deeds—yet the critique persists. And like a certain North Carolina basketball player, Miranda chose to take that personally. And in Mufasa: The Lion King, the Tony winner might just have his slam dunk of a baddie…

There are two kinds of Lord of the Rings fans. Those who have seen the Rankin and Bass version of The Return of the King, and everybody else. It’s okay. I get it. Peter Jackson delivered a near-perfect version of Return of the King in 2003, so, why would you watch the 1980 animated version, complete with singing orcs who are complaining about getting whipped all the time? Yes, most serious Tolkien-heads have seen the classic 1977 Rankin/Bass version of The Hobbit, but it’s in the beautiful strangeness of the 1980 Return of the King that the best and weirdest…