IndieWire

IndieWire HQ

The definitive outlet for film and TV news, reviews, and industry analysis.

Stories

Happy NYFF61 Opening Day!

Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, this year’s NYFF Main Slate boasts the latest films from Wim Wenders, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Jonathan Glazer. As previously announced, the festival will open September 29 with Todd Haynes’ “May December,” followed by Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” as the Centerpiece screening. The festival will conclude with Closing Night selection “Ferrari” by Michael Mann, debuting October 15.

The Best Way to Watch Movies: Can Home Viewing Really Ruin a Blockbuster?

It started, as so many things do these days, with a tweet. Over the weekend, IndieWire’s own Anne Thompson took to social media to share a recent interaction regarding the consumption of Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic, “Dune,” which finally arrived in both domestic theaters and streaming on HBO Max after a year of pandemic-pushed delays. Thompson tweeted, “A friend of mine admitted he stopped watching Dune on @hbomaxafter 90 minutes and I lost it. That’s only one part of what’s wrong with…

Annie Clark Unzips Her St. Vincent Persona for Meta Mockumentary ‘The Nowhere Inn’

Annie Clark unzipped out of her St. Vincent musical persona more nakedly than ever with the release of the 2017 album “Masseduction,” a chronicle of fame and excess that deals in drugs, sex, and broken relationships. While Clark argues that “you do know me if you listen to my music,” as the former Polyphonic Spree guitarist turned divine solo act explained to IndieWire, that album offered listeners a more raw St. Vincent than they’d heard before, especially in the aftermath of high-profile romances…

Paul Schrader Got ‘So Blatant’ in His Critiques of Tiffany Haddish, and She Loved It: ‘Yes, Give Me More’

Few people in Hollywood work as hard as Tiffany Haddish, who took her 2017 breakout in the raucous “Girls Trip” and ran with it something fierce, starring in everything from “Night School” and “The Kitchen” to “Tuca & Bertie” and “The Last O.G.,” while also performing standup, penning a best-selling memoir, and winning both an Emmy (for hosting “Saturday Night Live”) and a Grammy (for Best Comedy Album). Her jam-packed schedule has slowly given way to more unexpected outings, including her most…

45 Must-See New Movies to Catch This Fall Season

After more than a year of pushed-back release dates, ever-evolving release plans, and a raft of virtual festivals and other in-home viewing pivots, the release date calendar is looking a touch more normal these days. While many things are still in flux, the fall of 2021 is shaping up to offer one of the more stacked seasons in recent memory. From festival favorites to awards contenders, scrappy indies and dark horses, this autumn might still contain its own surprises, but one thing…

Recent reviews

How fitting that the “Planet of the Apes” franchise continues to evolve, despite forever encircling the same inescapable themes of inhumanity — even in a post-human world — and the double-edged sword of technological advancement. Wes Ball’s lush and nuanced “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” might lack the epic sweep or revolutionary fervor of the recent Matt Reeves movies that salvaged this series from the stink that had been on it since 2001, but this well-honed adventure still…

Wildcat

Wildcat

★★½

Ethan Hawke’s “Wildcat” has an intriguing fixation with artistic process. The actor-turned-director casts his own daughter, Maya Hawke, as Southern Gothic author Flannery O’Connor, in another film about a real artist’s life — “Blaze” was about a country musician; “Seymour: An Introduction” followed a classical pianist — with an unconventional and alluring narrative structure. However, despite Maya Hawke throwing herself headfirst into the part, her father’s attempts to capture O’Connor’s mind, body, and soul end up feeling incomplete.

The opening…

Jeanne du Barry

Jeanne du Barry

★★★

Zeroing in on a glamorous notable from this or that royal court, and using them a kind of mannequin over which to drape lofty themes and embellishments, “Jeanne du Barry” is a perfectly serviceable entry in a genre born of the stage and perfected by Old Hollywood: the star showcase. That the icon in the spotlight is writer-director-lead actor Maïwenn, and not her American co-star Johnny Depp, should come as a relief to some, a crushing disappointment to others, and…

Evil Does Not Exist

Evil Does Not Exist

★★★★

“Evil Does Not Exist,” the title of the latest film from “Drive My Car” director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, is a bold statement to make in the year 2023. As it turns out in this eerie and elusive ecological tone poem about man, nature, and man’s nature, the statement is not necessarily something the Japanese filmmaker believes.

This made-in-secret and gently lilting film set in a bucolic village on the outskirts of Tokyo seems like a call for compassion on the surface…

The Fall Guy

The Fall Guy

★★★½

At this year’s Academy Awards, “The Fall Guy” stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt presented a video tribute to stunt performers that included clips ranging from the silent era up through recent action juggernauts like “RRR” and the “Fast & Furious” series. It was a step forward for a group whose contributions are frequently undervalued despite, as Blunt put it, “risk[ing] life and limb” for cinema. And yet, the segment didn’t come with an award attached.

There’s a joke about the…

I Saw the TV Glow

I Saw the TV Glow

★★★★★

Sinister and liberating in equal measure (and often at the same time), Jane Schoenbrun’s ultra-lo-fi “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” leveraged the inherent loneliness of webcams and the performative danger of online creepypasta into a haunting portrait of the potentially dysphoric relationship between screens and identity in the internet age. The kind of sui generis shot in the dark that feels like it could only have been made by someone who wasn’t sure if anyone would see it,…

The Idea of You

The Idea of You

★★★★

Robinne Lee’s 2017 debut novel “The Idea of You” followed an almost 40-year-old woman who enters a romance with the star of a giant boyband sensation. The book was a giant hit, in no small part due to fans viewing one of the main characters as a stand-in for One Direction’s Harry Styles. Now comes a movie adaptation from the director of “The Big Sick,” which translates the novel while making enough changes to improve upon the source material, including…

Anyone But You

Anyone But You

★★★

America has been starved for pure, unapologetic, multiplex-grade romantic comedies, and Will Gluck’s “Anyone but You” doesn’t waste any time announcing itself as one of those. The first five minutes alone serve up a classic meet-cute in a coffee shop, a funny but wholly illogical bit of physical comedy involving a splash of water that might be mistaken for a pee stain, and a magical — but chaste — night together in a personality-less bachelor pad that looks just like…