Check out the most anticipated movies and shows premiering during the summer season, from [i]Ballerina[/i] to [i]Thunderbolts*[/i].

IMDb Summer Watch Guide

Check out the most anticipated movies and shows premiering during the summer season, from <em>Ballerina</em> to <em>Thunderbolts*</em>.

Sinister sequels, eerie indies, and blockbuster boo-fests — here are the most exciting horror movies and shows to add to your Watchlist.

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From [link=/name/nm6180088/]Young Mazino[/link] in "[link=/title/tt3581920]The Last of Us[/link]" to [link=/name/nm12043107]Sarah Bock[/link] in "[link=/title/tt11280740]Severance[/link]," check out these popular and up-and-coming stars who are taking Hollywood by storm.

Asian Hollywood Stars to Watch

From <a class="ipc-md-link" href="/name/nm6180088/?ref_=nmmi_eds_right-7_lk">Young Mazino</a> in &quot;<a class="ipc-md-link" href="/title/tt3581920?ref_=nmmi_eds_right-7_lk">The Last of Us</a>&quot; to <a class="ipc-md-link" href="/name/nm12043107?ref_=nmmi_eds_right-7_lk">Sarah Bock</a> in &quot;<a class="ipc-md-link" href="/title/tt11280740?ref_=nmmi_eds_right-7_lk">Severance</a>,&quot; check out these popular and up-and-coming stars who are taking Hollywood by storm.

Anthony Daniels and John Williams in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

Steven Spielberg and John Williams in AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to John Williams (2016)

John Williams in AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to John Williams (2016)

Harrison Ford and John Williams in AFI Life Achievement Award: A Tribute to John Williams (2016)

John Williams and Laurent Bouzereau in Music by John Williams (2024)

John Williams in Music by John Williams (2024)

Steven Spielberg, John Williams, and Ke Huy Quan

Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Richard E. Grant, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams, John Williams, Kathleen Kennedy, Keri Russell, Chris Terrio, J.J. Abrams, Lynn Robertson Bruce, Callum Greene, Hassan Taj, Oscar Isaac, Brian Herring, Michelle Rejwan, Dave Chapman, Robert A. Iger, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Robin Guiver, Daisy Ridley, Lee Towersey, Joonas Suotamo, and Naomi Ackie at an event for Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Henry Mancini, Olivia Newton-John, John Williams, and Johnny Green

Meryl Streep and John Williams at an event for The Oscars (2018)

John Williams, Kathleen Kennedy, and Ram Bergman at an event for Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

Anthony Daniels, Laura Dern, Mark Hamill, Benicio Del Toro, John Williams, Kathleen Kennedy, Ram Bergman, Rian Johnson, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong'o, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Daisy Ridley, and Joonas Suotamo at an event for Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

John Williams, Jenny Williams, and Adam Driver at an event for Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

Anthony Daniels, Laura Dern, Mark Hamill, Benicio Del Toro, John Williams, Kathleen Kennedy, Ram Bergman, Alan F. Horn, Rian Johnson, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong'o, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Daisy Ridley, and Joonas Suotamo at an event for Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

John Williams and Daisy Ridley at an event for Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

John Williams, Kathleen Kennedy, Rian Johnson, and Johnson John at an event for Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017)

George Lucas, John Williams, and Kathleen Kennedy

Steven Spielberg and John Williams at an event for The BFG (2016)

Steven Spielberg and John Williams at an event for The 84th Annual Academy Awards (2012)

John Williams at an event for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

John Williams at an event for The Patriot (2000)

Anthony Daniels, John Williams, and Kenny Baker in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)

James Cameron, Danny Elfman, Elmer Bernstein, Hans Zimmer, John Debney, John Williams, Brian Tyler, Quincy Jones, Randy Newman, Howard Shore, and Trent Reznor in Score (2016)

John Williams in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Anthony Daniels, Frank Oz, John Williams, Kenny Baker, Hayden Christensen, Temuera Morrison, Bodie Taylor, and Richard Stride in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar nominations (five wins), twenty-odd Gold and Platinum Records, and a slew of Emmy (two wins), Golden Globe (three wins), Grammy (25 wins), National Board of Review (including a Career Achievement Award), Saturn (six wins), American Film Institute (including a Lifetime Achievement Award) and BAFTA (seven wins) citations, along with honorary doctorate degrees numbering in the teens, Williams is undoubtedly one of the most respected composers for Cinema. He's led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the Pop's Conductor Laureate. Also to his credit is a parallel career as an author of serious, and some not-so-serious, concert works - performed by the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich, André Previn, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Leonard Slatkin, James Ingram, Dale Clevenger, and Joshua Bell. Of particular interests are his Essay for Strings, a jazzy Prelude & Fugue, the multimedia presentation American Journey (aka The Unfinished Journey (1999)), a Sinfonietta for Winds, a song cycle featuring poems by Rita Dove, concerti for flute, violin, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, cello, bassoon and horn, fanfares for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a song co-written with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the Special Olympics! But such a list probably warrants a more detailed background...

Born in Floral Park, New York on February 8, 1932, John Towner Williams discovered music almost immediately, due in no small measure to being the son of a percussionist for CBS Radio and the Raymond Scott Quintet. After moving to Los Angeles in 1948, the young pianist and leader of his own jazz band started experimenting with arranging tunes; at age 15, he determined he was going to become a concert pianist; at 19, he premiered his first original composition, a piano sonata.

He attended both UCLA and the Los Angeles City College, studying orchestration under MGM musical associate Robert Van Eps and being privately tutored by composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, until conducting for the first time during three years with the U.S. Air Force. His return to the states brought him to Julliard, where renowned piano pedagogue Madame Rosina Lhevinne helped Williams hone his performance skills. He played in jazz clubs to pay his way; still, she encouraged him to focus on composing. So it was back to L.A., with the future maestro ready to break into the Hollywood scene.

Williams found work with the Hollywood studios as a piano player, eventually accompanying such fare such as the TV series Peter Gunn (1958), South Pacific (1958), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as well as forming a surprising friendship with Bernard Herrmann. At age 24, "Johnny Williams" became a staff arranger at Columbia and then at 20th Century-Fox, orchestrating for Alfred Newman and Lionel Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, and other Golden Age notables. In the field of popular music, he performed and arranged for the likes of Vic Damone, Doris Day, and Mahalia Jackson... all while courting actress/singer Barbara Ruick, who became his wife until her death in 1974. John & Barbara had three children; their daughter is now a doctor, and their two sons, Joseph Williams and Mark Towner Williams, are rock musicians.

The orchestrating gigs led to serious composing jobs for television, notably Alcoa Premiere (1961), Checkmate (1960), Gilligan's Island (1964), Lost in Space (1965), Land of the Giants (1968), and his Emmy-winning scores for Heidi (1968) and Jane Eyre (1970). Daddy-O (1958) and Because They're Young (1960) brought his original music to the big theatres, but he was soon typecast doing comedies. His efforts in the genre helped guarantee his work on William Wyler's How to Steal a Million (1966), however, a major picture that immediately led to larger projects. Of course, his arrangements continued to garner attention, and he won his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on the Roof (1971).

During the '70s, he was King of Disaster Scores with The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974). His psychological score for Images (1972) remains one of the most innovative works in soundtrack history. But his Americana - particularly The Reivers (1969) - is what caught the ear of director Steven Spielberg, then preparing for his first feature, The Sugarland Express (1974). When Spielberg reunited with Williams on Jaws (1975), they established themselves as a blockbuster team, the composer gained his first Academy Award for Original Score, and Spielberg promptly recommended Williams to a friend, George Lucas. In 1977, John Williams re-popularized the epic cinema sound of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman and other composers from the Hollywood Golden Age: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) became the best selling score-only soundtrack of all time, and spawned countless musical imitators. For the next five years, though the music in Hollywood changed, John Williams wrote big, brassy scores for big, brassy films - The Fury (1978), Superman (1978), 1941 (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) ... An experiment during this period, Heartbeeps (1981), flopped. There was a long-term change of pace, nonetheless, as Williams fell in love with an interior designer and married once more.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) brought about his third Oscar, and The River (1984), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Accidental Tourist (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) added variety to the 1980s, as he returned to television with work on Amazing Stories (1985) and themes for NBC, including NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas (1970). The '80s also brought the only exceptions to the composer's collaboration with Steven Spielberg - others scored both Spielberg's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and The Color Purple (1985).

Intending to retire, the composer's output became sporadic during the 1990s, particularly after the exciting Jurassic Park (1993) and the masterful, Oscar-winning Schindler's List (1993). This lighter workload, coupled with a number of hilarious references on The Simpsons (1989) actually seemed to renew interest in his music. Two Home Alone films (1990, 1992), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), Sleepers (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Angela's Ashes (1999), and a return to familiar territory with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) recalled his creative diversity of the '70s.

In this millennium, the artist shows no interest in slowing down. His relationships with Spielberg and Lucas continue in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), the remaining Star Wars prequels (2002, 2005), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), and a promised fourth Indiana Jones film. There is a more focused effort on concert works, as well, including a theme for the new Walt Disney Concert Hall and a rumored light opera. But one certain highlight is his musical magic for the world of Harry Potter (2001, 2002, 2004, etc.), which he also arranged into a concert suite geared toward teaching children about the symphony orchestra. His music remains on the whistling lips of people around the globe, in the concert halls, on the promenades, in album collections, sports arenas, and parades, and, this writer hopes, touching some place in ourselves. So keep those ears ready wherever you go, 'cause you will likely hear a bit of John Williams on your way.

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