Category Archives: Film

Sean Baker wins best director Oscar for Anora

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Director who made his name with microbudget indie films wins with his self-penned drama about a lapdancer who falls for one of her clients

Sean Baker has won the best director Oscar for Anora at the Academy Awards, which are taking place in Los Angeles, California.

A romance/thriller about a lapdancer who impulsively marries a Russian playboy, Anora stars Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn. It is Baker’s eighth feature, having made his debut with the microbudget indie Four Letter Words in 2000, and his fourth film since making a breakthrough in 2015 with Tangerine, a drama about trans sex workers shot on iPhones.

Anora wins best original and Conclave wins best adapted screenplay

Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting prizes

No Other Land wins best documentary andFlow wins best animated feature

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Adrien Brody wins best actor Oscar for The Brutalist

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Former youngest-ever winner of best actor Oscar wins award again for his portrayal of fictional architect in Brady Corbet’s epic drama

Adrien Brody has won the Academy Award for best actor for his role in Brady Corbet’s post-war epic The Brutalist.

In 2003, Brody became the youngest ever winner of the same award, when he took the prize for his role in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, aged 29 years, 343 days.

Anora takes home best picture Oscar

Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes

Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards

Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay

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British composer Daniel Blumberg wins best original score Oscar for The Brutalist

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Sole previous scoring credit on a full-length film for the singer, guitar player and visual artist is The World to Come

The young British composer Daniel Blumberg has won his first Oscar for his second-ever musical score for a feature film, for Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist.

Blumberg, 34, won the Bafta award last month for the score, which has met with considerable praise and which plays a prominent role in the film. The Brutalist is the story of a fictitious Hungarian architect, László Tóth, who moves to the US after surviving the Holocaust.

Anora takes home best picture Oscar

Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes

Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards

Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay

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I’m Still Here wins Oscar for best international film, becoming first Brazilian film to do so

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Brazil’s official entry beats beleaguered French favourite Emilia Pérez to the podium

I’m Still Here has won the Oscar for best international film at the Academy Awards, which are currently taking place in Los Angeles. It is the first Brazilian film to win the award – and was also the first to be nominated.

Directed by Walter Salles and starring Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here is a political drama based on the true story of Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens was “disappeared” and murdered in 1970s Brazil. The film had to overcome a lineup including Danish true-crime story The Girl With the Needle, Iran-set legal drama The Seed of the Sacred Fig and trans gangster musical Emilia Pérez, which had been the hot favourite for the award.

Anora takes home best picture Oscar

Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison win best acting prizes

Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win supporting awards

Anora’s Sean Baker wins for directing, editing and screenplay

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No Other Land directors criticise US as they accept documentary Oscar: ‘US foreign policy is helping block the path’ to peace

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Self-distributed film about Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community beat out Porcelain War and Sugarcane

The West Bank-based film No Other Land has won this year’s best documentary feature Oscar.

The film, which is made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, won out against competition from Black Box Diaries, Porcelain War and Sugarcane.

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Hopeful or ‘hate-fuelled’? Film of controversial play about Israel gets London premiere

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Director says Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill, which provoked fury at its first production in 2009, is a ‘family story’ at heart

The premiere of Caryl Churchill’s short play Seven Jewish Children at the Royal Court theatre 16 years ago proved to be one of British theatre’s most controversial opening nights.

Audiences were immediately divided by the British playwright’s deliberately stripped-back treatment of Jewish generational fear and Israel’s history of conflict.

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Santa Fe abuzz as residents wonder: what caused Gene Hackman’s death?

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New Mexico town shocked by deaths of actor, wife and dog – but answers to critical questions may take time to emerge

As New Mexico authorities investigate the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, their adopted home town of Santa Fe is grappling with the mystery of what happened to the couple.

Hackman, a Hollywood legend with two Academy Awards picked up over a 60-year career, and Arakawa, a classical pianist, had lived in the area for decades and had embraced the close-knit community that is New Mexico’s capital city.

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‘I chose to NOT follow the gutless rules’: Francis Ford Coppola says he’s ‘thrilled’ by Golden Raspberry votes

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Veteran film-maker defends his sci-fi epic Megalopolis as it scores two Razzies from nominations that included ‘worst picture’

Francis Ford Coppola has said he was “thrilled” to accept multiple Golden Raspberry nominations for his film Megalopolis, which ended up winning two awards.

On Instagram, Coppola said that he was treating the nominations, which are voted for by Razzie members, who pay for the privilege, as a “distinctive honour … when so few have the courage to go against the prevailing trends of contemporary moviemaking!”

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Indian cinema chain sued by film-goer over lengthy pre-film ads

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Court orders compensation to be paid to 30-year-old from Bangalore, saying ‘in the new era, time is considered as money, each one’s time is very precious’

For some, the adverts that precede the start of a film are the bane of a trip to the cinema; for others, they are a useful buffer as you stand in the popcorn queue.

But for one man in India, the lengthy marathon of cinema advertising was so infuriating that he took the matter to the courts – and won.

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Karla Sofía Gascón to attend Oscars despite tweet controversy

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The Emilia Pérez best actress nominee will be at Sunday’s ceremony with Netflix paying for all expenses incurred

The Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón is reportedly set to attend this Sunday’s Oscars after controversy over bigoted tweets.

The Spanish actor, who is nominated for best actress, had been removed from the campaign trail by Netflix after resurfaced tweets led to a backlash.

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Thousands of children in England accused of witchcraft in past decade

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Figures emerge as Kindoki Witch Boy film tells true story of Mardoche Yembi who underwent an exorcism as a child

Thousands of children in England have been accused of witchcraft over the past decade, according to new figures that come alongside a film released on Monday.

Faith-based abuse is a worldwide phenomenon but experts found 14,000 social work assessments linked to witchcraft accusations since 2015. In the year running to March 2024 alone, there were 2,180 assessments linked to witchcraft.

Children accused of witchcraft can call Childline on 0800 1111 or NSPCC on 0808 800 500.

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Sag awards 2025: Timothée Chalamet, Demi Moore, Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña win major categories

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Screen Actors Guild awards go to Shōgun and Conclave ensembles, while Jane Fonda gives a rousing political speech while accepting a life achievement award

Timothée Chalamet has won best actor in a surprise upset at the 2025 Screen Actors Guild awards for his performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, with Demi Moore and the ensembles of Shōgun and Conclave also winning big.

Chalamet won best male actor in a leading role, his first in an awards race that has been led all season by The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody, who has picked up the Golden Globe, Bafta and Critics’ Choice awards and is still widely predicted to win the Oscar next week.

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‘He targeted me’: Guy Pearce says he ‘sobbed’ over Kevin Spacey encounters

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The Oscar-nominated actor has said he is attempting to be more candid about his former co-star’s alleged behaviour

Guy Pearce, the actor Oscar-nominated for his role in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, has opened up about his experiences when working with Kevin Spacey on 1997 film LA Confidential.

Pearce had previously been oblique about his time with Spacey, who has been dogged by accusations of sexual misconduct, which Spacey has always denied, calling him “a handsy guy” in 2018. But speaking on Hollywood Reporter’s podcast Awards Chatter, the actor said he was now attempting to be franker about his co-star’s alleged behaviour.

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UK copyright law consultation ‘fixed’ in favour of AI firms, peer says

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Exclusive: Beeban Kidron says plans will lead to ‘wholesale’ transfer of wealth from creative industries to tech sector

A consultation on changes to UK copyright law is “fixed” in favour of artificial intelligence companies and will lead to a “wholesale” transfer of wealth from the creative industries to the tech sector, according to a crossbench peer campaigning against the mooted overhauls.

Beeban Kidron said the government was undermining its own growth agenda with proposals to let AI companies train their algorithms on creative works under a new copyright exemption.

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Emilia Pérez wins top Spanish film prize amid Karla Sofía Gascón furore

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Best European film at Goya awards goes to musical at centre of storm over past social media posts written by its star

The multi-Oscar-nominated narco-musical Emilia Pérez, whose success has been overshadowed by the emergence of a series of racist and Islamophobic social media posts written by its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, won best European film at Spain’s prestigious Goya awards on Saturday night.

Gascón, the first out transgender woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, stayed away from the ceremony after posts came to light in which she called George Floyd “a drug addict swindler”, denigrated China, and said Islam was “becoming a hotbed of infection for humanity”.

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Aacta awards 2025: Robbie Williams’ Better Man and Boy Swallows Universe dominate Australian film and TV prizes

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Singer biopic wins best film and best actor for motion capture star Jonno Davies, while Trent Dalton adaptation wins in 12 of its 22 nominated categories

The Netflix adaptation of Trent Dalton’s bestseller Boy Swallows Universe has dominated the annual Aacta (Australian Academy of Cinema, Television and the Arts) awards, winning 12 of its record-breaking 22 nominations.

The Aacta president, Russell Crowe, hosted the awards ceremony at Hota (Home of the Arts) on the Gold Coast on Friday, which featured a live performance by Robbie Williams, whose musical biopic, Better Man, collected nine awards on the night.

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‘I was deeply upset’: Karla Sofía Gascón to miss Spanish ‘Oscars’ as storm over racist tweets continues

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The actor was due to attend the Goya awards on Saturday but has pulled out and has also been dropped by publishers

Karla Sofía Gascón will not attend this weekend’s prestigious Goya awards as the fallout from the Spanish actor’s racist and Islamophobic social media posts continues with her being dropped by her publisher and criticised by prominent politicians.

Gascón – the star of Emilia Pérez and the first transgender woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar – is already understood to have been removed from the film’s campaigning materials by its studio, Netflix. Her comments have been described as “absolutely hateful” by the movie’s director, Jacques Audiard, while Gascón’s co-star, Zoe Saldana, has said the views expressed had saddened and disappointed her.

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Makeup artist tried to remove Adrien Brody’s nose by mistake on set of The Brutalist

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Actor says nose mistaken for prosthetic by new makeup artists: ‘I said, ‘That doesn’t come off!’

A makeup artist on The Brutalist tried to remove Adrien Brody’s nose believing it to be a prosthetic, the actor has revealed.

Speaking to Jimmy Fallon earlier this week, Brody said that a new makeup artist began “busily working away with a solvent on my nose”.

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BBC and ITV slash big-budget TV spend as US streamers pour money into UK

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Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky also among UK broadcasters making cuts as Netflix, Disney and Amazon pile on pressure

UK broadcasters slashed their spending on big-budget TV shows to the lowest level in almost a decade last year, even as their US rivals Netflix, Disney and Amazon ploughed hundreds of millions more into British-made premium content.

In a sign of the increasing competitive pressures of the streaming era, the amount spent on high-end TV shows costing more than £1m an hour to make by domestic operators such as the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky, plunged by a quarter last year to £598m.

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Emilia Pérez director criticises Karla Sofia Gascón’s ‘inexcusable’ tweets

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Oscar nominee Jacques Audiard has called the social media behaviour of the actor ‘hateful’ in a new interview

The director of Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard, has responded to the controversial unearthed tweets of his Oscar-nominated star Karla Sofía Gascón, branding them “hateful”.

The French film-maker, who is also nominated for the best director Oscar, has expressed disappointment over the social media behaviour of Gascón, who had shown bigoted views towards people of colour, Muslims and increased diversity at the Oscars.

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